he governing and governed in Russia are really
paternal on the one hand and filial on the other, and I hope that I may
be able to induce my readers to believe that is true of the greater part
of the whole population.

In the first place, the knout is long since gone. No such thing exists
now, except as a curiosity, in the whole of Russia, nor has it been used
officially since the days of the present Emperor's _great grandfather_!

Next there are the convicts. It is now twenty-five years since Mr. Harry
de Windt, the well-known traveller, disproved the lurid accounts which
had been given a short time before of the horrors of Siberian prisons.
In his book of 1903 he says, "I have always maintained that were I
sentenced to a term of penal servitude I would infinitely prefer to
serve it in (some parts of) Siberia than in England." When he puts these
words in brackets he is thinking, of course, of the severity of climate
and distance from frequented routes, and not of the treatment of the
prisoners. He tells at length--space does not permit me to quote freely
as I would like to do--how even criminal convicts are well cared for;
and that even the murderers and murderesses amongst them, for there is
no capital punishment in Russia, are lodged in wards which are clean and
well warmed; that there is a comfortable infirmary connected with a
prison, and even a home close at hand, supported by private
subscription, for children of the prisoners.

Mr. Foster Fraser also, in his book on _The Real Siberia_--perhaps one
of the best known of modern works on that part of the empire--tells us
that having been more "thrilled" as a boy by what he had read about
Siberian prisons than by Red Indian stories, and knowing that people,
the world over, were in the habit of saying, "Only Russia could be so
cruel, a civilized country would shrink from such barbarities,"
determined to go and see for himself, and, as is usual with those who go
to Russia full of prejudice and dread, the scales fell from his eyes
when he visited Irkutsk prison. He found to his surprise that, "It was
not the gloomy, sullen-stoned, slit-windowed, iron-barred structure such
as are our prisons at home"; and he describes at length a system which
will compare favourably with any other prisons in the world, as to
discipline, but surpasses them all in friendliness and freedom from
constraint. "What attracted me was the informal relationship between
governor and prisoners. The