Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/525

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These sections, it will be observed, are tolerably comprehensive. They not only include all attempts to overthrow the Government vi et armis; they not only cover all action "calculated to create disrespect for Majesty"; but they provide for the punishment of the mere intention to bring about a change of administration, at a remote time in the future, by means of peaceable discussion and the education of the people. Even this is not all. A man may be perfectly loyal, he may never have given expression to a single thought calculated to create disrespect for the Gossudar, or the Gossudar's Government; and yet, if he comes accidentally to know that his sister, or his brother, or his friend belongs to a society which contemplates a "change in the existing form of government," and if he does not go voluntarily to the chief of gendarmes and betray that brother, sister, or friend, the law is adequate to send him to Siberia for life.