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 202 ESSAYS AND LETTERS

well, and, knowing it, deliberately destroyed all that the Liberals thought they had achieved, and were so proud of. It altered and limited Trial by Jury ; it abolished the office of Judge of the Peace ; it cancelled the rights of the Universities ; it perverted the whole system of instruction in the High Schools ; it re-estab- lished the Cadet Corps, and even the State-sale of intoxicants ; it established the Zemsky Natchdlniks ; it legalized flogging ; it almost abolished the Local Government ; it gave uncontrolled power to the Governors of Provinces ; it encouraged the quartering of troops on the peasants in punishment ; it increased the practice of ' administrative^* banishment and im- prisonment, and the capital punishment of political offenders ; it renewed religious persecutions ; it brought to a climax the use of barbarous superstitions ; it legalized murder in duels ; under the name of a ' State of Siege 't it established lawlessness with capital punishment as a normal condition of things — and in all this it met with no protest except from one honour- able woman, I who boldly told the Government the truth as she saw it.

The Liberals whispered among themselves that these things displeased thent, but they continued to take part

by the arbitrary will of the Government, or by the Chief of the Gendarmes of a Province. Administrative sentences are often inflicted without the victim being heard in his own defence, or even knowing what he is punished for.
 * Sentenced by Administrative Order means sentenced

t The 'Statute of Increased Protection,' usually trans- lated ' State of Siege,' was first applied to Petersburg and Moscow only, but was subsequently extended to Odessa, Kief, Kharkof, and Warsaw. Under^ this law, practically absolute power, including that of capital punishment, was entrusted to the Governors - General of the Provinces in question.

X Madame Tsebrikof, a well-known writer and literary critic, wrote a polite but honest letter to Alexander III., pointing out what was being done by the Government. She was banished to a distant province.