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324 He happened to be born in Russia, and was therefore pre-destined to imprisonment and exile.

Among the most interesting of the newly arrived political exiles in Tomsk was Mr. Constantine Staniukóvich, the editor and proprietor of the Russian magazine Diélo,

whose history I gave briefly in Chapter XI ["Exile by Administrative Process," p. 243]. He was a close and accurate observer of Russian social life, a talented novelist, a writer of successful dramas, and a man of great force, energy, and ability. His wife, who had accompanied him to Siberia, spoke English fluently with the least perceptible accent, and seemed to me to be a woman of more than ordinary culture and refinement. They had one grown daughter, a pretty, intelligent girl seventeen or eighteen years of age, as well as two or three younger children, and the whole family made upon us an extremely pleasant impression. Some of the