Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/347

Rh most delightful evenings that we had in Tomsk were spent in their cozy little parlor, where we sometimes sat until long after midnight listening to duets sung by Miss Staniukóvich and Prince Kropótkin; discussing Russian methods of government and the exile system; or comparing our impressions of London, Paris, Berlin, New York, and San Francisco. Both Mr. and Mrs. Staniukóvich had traveled in the United States, and it seemed not a little strange to find in their house in Siberia visiting-cards of such well-known American officers as Captain James B. Eads and Captain John Rodgers, a photograph of President Lincoln, and Indian bead and birch-bark work in the shape of slippers and toy canoes brought as souvenirs from Niagara Falls. We had not expected to find ourselves linked to political exiles in Siberia by such a multitude of common experiences and memories, nor to be shown in their houses such familiar things as bead-embroidered moccasins and birch-bark watch-pockets made by the Tonawanda Indians. Mr. Staniukóvich was struggling hard, by means of literary work, to support his family in exile; and his wife, who was an accomplished musician, aided him as far as possible by giving music lessons.

I am glad to be able to say that, since my return to the United States, Mr. Staniukóvich has completed his term of exile, has left the empire, and when I last heard of him was in Paris. He continues to write indefatigably for the Russian periodicals, and has recently published a volume of collected sketches entitled "Stories of the Sea."

Another political exile in whom I became deeply interested at Tomsk was Prince Alexander Kropótkin, brother of the well-known author and socialist who now resides in London. As his history clearly illustrates certain phases of political exile life I will briefly relate it.

Although banished to Siberia upon the charge of disloyalty Kropótkin was not a nihilist, nor a revolutionist, nor even an extreme radical. His views with regard to social