תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

"I appoint to you," he said to his disciples on the eve of his passion, "a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

Now, enlightened by the events, we know that the kingdom of God foretold by Jesus was

the improvement produced by Christianity. And when we compare the state of the pagan world, with its slavery, its cruelty, its licentiousness, its injustice, its fraud, and its hopeless, unimproving corruption, with that of the countries in which Christianity in its purer form exists, we may well call the latter the kingdom of God.

SIBERIA.*

HERE are at this moment millions of Poles Now, there is very little consolation in thinking

to death in the quicksilver- we are

mines of Siberia solely because they are Roman to realize our difficulties if you are not reminded Catholics." of your own?

Such is one of the startling assertions with which all attempts to create an entente cordiale between Russia and England are so often rudely repulsed. It is more dignified, of course, to let stories of that kind pass unnoticed. One scarcely admits that anybody earnestly craving for truth can accept every absurdity. But it is no easy task for English people to find out what is the real state of things in Russia, our language being not an easy one to learn,† and we publish so seldom any refutation in our self-defense in any foreign tongue. I think my countrymen are wrong in never caring for what is said of them abroad, the moment they perceive that ill-faith has anything to do with this or with that calumny. There is too much pride in our systematic contempt for injustice. I see no humiliation in trying to explain the very little I know.

I wish I could be eloquent and persuasive. But I can only be true and outspoken. Nor is there any great merit in reporting what has already become a commonplace. That, surely, requires little civic or moral courage! But there is a reason which often prevents Russians from protesting, with which I heartily sympathize. As a rule, the more you have to defend yourself the more you come to the ungenerous "Tu quoque!"

* A chapter from "Russia and England, from 1876 to 1880; a Protest and an Appeal." By a Russian author. London: Longmans, Green & Co.

+ On this point Prince Bismarck is an authority. In Busch's remarkable book "Bismarck und seine Leute," the German Chancellor expresses himself as follows: "I can not conceive why Greek should be learned at all. If it is contended that the study of Greek is excellent mental discipline, to learn Russian would be still more so, and at the same time practically useful. Twenty-eight declensions and the innumerable niceties by which the deficiencies of conjugations are made up for are something to exercise the memory. And then, how are the words changed! Frequently nothing but a single letter of the original root remains."

When you accuse us, for instance, of our "atrocious convict system," how are we to avoid reminding you that you exiled your convicts to the antipodes as late as 1853, and that your convict establishments at Norfolk Island and Macquarrie Harbor were not supposed to be exactly what philanthropists could wish for? Indeed, Russians have been often told stories of horror of the chain-gang and the lash at the antipodes which rival even the worst your libelers have invented about our quicksilver-mines.

England made a point of disbelieving the reality of our good feelings because of our shortcomings. Are we to apply the same system in judging you? When we honestly sought your alliance in supporting the Eastern Christians, you not only refused your help but strengthened as much as you could the Turkish resistance. Your Government brought upon us a war which cost us not only millions of money, but many, many lives, whose loss will always be present to our memory, in spite of the lapse of time, and in spite of all the advantages which a successful war could gain. Your Government has done us a great deal of harm; and that it did not go further was simply because it felt convinced that no sacrifice, no danger could stop us the moment we thought it our duty to resist its concealed or open attacks. And in order to calm some generous, straightforward Englishmen, your officials tried to estrange them from us by inventing elsewhere; and the ridiculous story about the "Russian atrocities" in southern Bulgaria and millions of Poles exiled on account of their religion to Siberia is one of the snares set for English credulity.

The fact is this: Since this century commenced there have been (taking the most exaggerated numbers) about five hundred thousand persons exiled to Siberia, or less than ten thousand a year, but the majority of these were not

Poles but Russians; nor were the Poles exiled on account of their religion, unless ordered to be rebels by their religion, as has sometimes been the case; but even then they were exiled for their rebellion, not for their religion. Imaginary geography is, I dare say, well studied in England, but the real one is decidedly not. Allow me, therefore, to remind you of what Siberia really is. Siberia is the northern half of the continent of Asia, exceeding in size the whole of Europe, and, as such, not easily described in a single formula. In the extreme north it is almost uninhabitable, and it is not thither that we send our criminals, for obvious reasons. It is too far off, and, if we sent them into these dreary expanses of snow and ice, we should have to feed them at a ruinous expense. As you see, I do not want to idealize the measures taken by our Government. But, sending our criminals to Siberia, as we do, in order to get rid of them cheaply, it would defeat our object to send them into the confines of the Arctic Circle. When you say Siberia, you imagine only the desolate north. Siberia, to exiles, with few exceptions, in reality means the fertile south-so fertile, indeed, that when set at liberty the exiles very often prefer to remain on its rich and cultivated soil. A university is going to be established at Tomsk, which will enable their children to profit by all the results of culture and civilization. Only the worst criminals, murderers, and desperate enemies of the state are sent to the mines and there employed in hard labor. But they form a small minority. In nine cases out of ten, exile to Siberia means enforced emigration to a fertile and scantily peopled country. Transportation with us does not necessarily imply penal servitude. In many cases we simply convey the convicts across the Ural range, and then turn them loose to help themselves. Once in Siberia they are free to go where they please, as long as they do not return to European Russia.

As the Governor-General of Western Siberia reports only the other day, the English convict system differed from the Russian chiefly in severity. The English convict was compelled to work on penalty of the lash or gallows; the Russian convict-I quote General Koznakoff's exact words, as I have good reasons for trusting his word-is pitchforked into Siberia, and permitted to do whatever he likes short of actual crime. Many weighty voices are heard against "the too great liberty accorded to convicts." But foolish kind-heartedness, however absurd such an assertion may appear to you, is one of our national features. We often bear in mind what our great Empress, Catharine II., used to say, "Better pardon ten criminals than punish one innocent." We feel these words, and act accordingly, and I

would prefer being still more foolish to introducing the slavery of English convict prisons into Siberia. To accuse and find fault is always an easy thing. To accuse with indisputable good ground is more difficult, but to understand entirely those we judge is almost beyond our power. So, as you see, it is only natural to distrust our judgment if its object is to torture those who depend upon it. But is it such a cruel thing, so revolting to English humanity, when a man has committed even a crime to give him a new start in life in a new and more fertile country?

Mr. Barry, in his “Russia in 1870," declares that in many districts the climate of Siberia has the mildness of that of Italy, lying, as it does, in the same latitude as Venice. The soil is a rich, deep black loam, capable of yielding prodigious harvests. Fruit grows wild in any quantity. Game is in abundance, and food is exceedingly cheap. "I can think of no country in the world," he concludes by asserting, "which offers the same advantages to a young man with a small capital as Siberia. Whenever I travel in Siberia I always think-Why is it that our countrymen are sent away to the antipodes in search of a colony? Here they would be nearer home; they can get better land, cheaper than in many of our colonies! They could live more cheaply, get cheaper labor, and enjoy many advantages of civilization which they would want in the colonies."

That is not Russian-that is English testimony. Another Englishman who employed many workmen in Russia recently remarked: "Many of our hands come from Siberia, but they never remain very long. After two or three years they begin to pine for home, and when they leave they give no reason except-'It is very good, but not like Siberia !'"

Many Englishmen seem to think that Siberia is a large torture-chamber—a gigantic quicksilver-mine-where we send innocent persons to be slowly murdered. It is, on the contrary, a huge emigration field, whither we send criminals with the double object of getting rid of them and of supplying a sparsely peopled province with colonists. It may not be a good way of dealing with criminals, according to your view, but at least the charge of too great leniency is quite the reverse of what we are usually blamed for. To some the sentence ordering them to go to Siberia inflicts no disgrace. In their case it is simply equivalent to a compulsory passage to one of your colonies.

The number sent to Siberia, according to the latest official report, averages since 1860 about twenty thousand per annum-not a very large proportion out of a population of eighty-four millions. In England and Wales, with little more

than one quarter of the population, you have twelve thousand criminal convictions every year. The evils of which General Koznakoff complains are precisely those which would never arise if the facts corresponded to the English notion. So little limitation is placed upon the liberty of our convicts that numbers escape. In Tobolsk, in January, 1876, out of 51,122 exiles only 34,293 could be found. In Tomsk nearly five thousand were missing out of thirty thousand. The great mischief of our system of pitchforking convicts into Siberia, and telling them to do what they please, is that very few of them take to honest labor. The country is so rich that they can live without hard work, and they become idle, goodfor-nothing vagabonds. It is an easy way of getting rid of convicts, but it is not good for Siberia. M. Koznakoff, the Governor-General, declares that millions are spent in governing them without there being the slightest return for the expenditure in the shape of private or public works. Since 1870 about four thousand persons a year have been exiled for "offenses against the administration," some of whom, of course, are political offenders. But no mistake could be greater than to suppose that all these political offenders were sent to the quicksilver-mines. For the most part they are left free to do as they please in certain districts, subject to police surveillance. As to the quicksilver-mines, they are solely reserved for murderers and political criminals of the worst kind-people many of whom in England you would have hanged off-hand. But, as we have abolished capital punishment, we must do something with our murderers, etc., so we send them to the mines.

Of course, there may be great abuses in our establishments—I wish I could deny that—just as there were in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land before you discontinued transportation. I admit injustice and mistakes on the part of our authorities-authorities are not infallible. But you would be wise in not accepting implicitly every libel told against us by Polish rebels. A few months ago a friend sent me a report of the most dreadful cruelties which a Fenian prisoner said he had suffered in your convict-prisons. Believe me, our Poles, when instigated by their father confessors, are not behind your Fenians in the compilation of a catalogue of horrors. If merely Russophobes attacked us I would not make even the shortest reply. But the minds of some of our friends are evidently put out of ease with these horrible legends, and I do not like to strengthen our enemies' hands by refraining from stating the truth.

If it is complained that “I idealize even Siberia," I may quote from an article embodying the results of Recent Exploration of the Siberian

Coast," by Captain Wiggins, the adventurous explorer of the Arctic regions, whose enterprise in opening up a trade route by sea to Siberia has attracted much attention in Russia. As the testimony of an independent witness, I make the following extract:* "Captain Wiggins has had many opportunities during his visits of thoroughly studying the system of exile from other parts of the Russian Empire, which is such a prominent subject in connection with Siberia, and, like others who have personally investigated it, he has arrived at conclusions very different from those popularly entertained. The captain declares that not one third of these time-service exiles elect to make the return journey to their former homes; they find that life is easier and pleasanter in the land to which they have been forcibly sent, and they end by becoming free settlers in the country of their adoption. Desperate criminals only are sent to labor in the quicksilver-mines, and for these there is a specially severe discipline provided, and 'horrors, without doubt, exist.'"

The explorer goes on to say, for many years past the desire of the Russian Government has been to forward, by all means in their power, the settlement of this portion of their territory, and they have learned that it is good policy to take the utmost possible care of the lives of the exiles, and to place them in the best possible positions for self-maintenance at the earliest opportunity. With the exception of the robbers and cutthroats specially condemned to the mines, the exiles are spread about in the towns and agricultural districts soon after their arrival, and, as a rule, they are left to shift for themselves. The supervision over them is slight, but tolerably effectual. The exiles, when quitting for any length of time the district to which they are assigned, must report their project to the head man, and they are then. at liberty to go where they please, up or down the great river systems of the country, but they must not attempt to pass westward toward European Russia. A great number of the Russian exiles and immigrants employ themselves in the mines, and Captain Wiggins's experience of the people convinces him that they are "a happy, rollicking, joyous community-well clad, well fed, and well cared for." During the summer months they are able to earn sufficient money to provide for the wants of their respective households; in the long winter, and the commencement of the cold season, when they visit the town to make their purchases, is generally a time of high festivity among them. Captain Wiggins declares that some exiles are now settled in the north by the Russian Government, which, in this

* From an article published on November 21, 1878, by the "Newcastle Chronicle," the organ, I am told, of one of the most prejudiced of English Russophobes.

particular kind of banishment, undertakes certain responsibilities with regard to the maintenance of the convicts. Supplies of rye-meal are, in the summer season, forwarded to the farthest northern limits where the head men are appointed. These officials dispense the stores, during the winter, on a sort of credit system, to such exiles (or even families of the native tribes) as may need it, and in the succeeding summer the indebted parties must liquidate the cost price of the food they have received in furs, skins, or dried fish.

Captain Wiggins, unlike most writers on Russian questions, has visited Siberia and seen the country with his own eyes. It was, therefore, but natural that his evidence should be favorable. More surprising and unexpected is the testimony as to the falsity of the prevailing prejudices which appeared in November, 1879, in the Conservative "Standard," entitled "The Future of Siberia." It really is encouraging to find such truthful remarks as the following in the columns of a Ministerial organ:

Siberia, to the mind of Europe, is associated with nothing but horror. One connects it with the crack of Bashkir Cossack's whip, with the groans of wretched exiles dying-or, worse still, living-in the mines of Nertchinsk, and with cold and misery. In reality these ideas, though firmly imbedded in the English mind, are altogether erroneous if they are to be accepted as true of Siberia at large or of the state of matters in that country at present. The truth is, Siberia is a country of such extent that no general description can apply to all of it, and even when the accounts which have reached Europe have been true, which in the vast number of cases they were not, they related only to the northern part of the territory. Siberia is an infinitely richer and finer country than Canada or the northern part of America generally. Though the Polish exiles and others of a literary turn have, not unnaturally, given it a bad name, they have allowed their own sufferings to color their narrative. In Siberia the Russian peasant can get the "black earth" soil, and he escapes, under certain conditions, the military service. Doubtless the unfortunates," who are sent on an average at the rate of thirteen thousand per annum to the penal colonies of Siberia, are not pampered to any alarming extent. But that they are nowadays treated with the severity they were in the times of Peter, Catharine, Paul, and even Nicholas, is entirely untrue. Indeed, since the accession of the present Czar, who in early life visited the penal settlements, the bureaucrats' complaint is, that so mild has the punishment of expatriation become that Siberia is losing its terrors. It is, indeed, the locality into which the Russian jails are annually emptied, and an offender is sent to that country who would in any other be simply sentenced to a few years' imprisonment. In the vast number of cases exile to Siberia is a very different matter from what banishment to Tasmania or New South Wales used to be. In the first place, as a

rule, the Russian convicts go from a bad climate to a better, and are in such good company that the disgrace of transportation gets much modified. Only the third class-criminals of the deepest dye-work in the mines. These mines are, however, not all underground; they may consist of gold-washeries, or the exile may be set to the almost pleasurable excitement of searching for gems. At one time the worst offensive politicians were not only compelled to class of convicts-usually murderers and particularly work underground, but they had to live there, and— horrible thought!—were buried there also. No wonder that Siberia got a bad name. But not over one fourth of the Siberian miners are convicts, and a recent explorer is even of opinion that the latter are in better circumstances physically, and lead quite as comfortable and more moral lives than the corresponding class of free men in America, England, or Australia. Society in the large towns is pleasant and polished. Banishment to Siberia has been overdone, and thus the mischief is righting itself by the natural law of compensation. It has long ceased to be a disgrace; it is rapidly ceasing to be a punish

ment.

No country in the world, except, perhaps, the valleys of the Amazon and the Mississippi, has such a perfect system of water communication as Siberia. The rich meadows near the mouth of the Yenisei, even though far within the Arctic Circle, astonished the Norwegian walrus-hunters who accompanied Professor Nordenskjöld. "What a land God has given the Russians!" was the half-admiring, half-envious exclamation of a peasant seaman who owned a little patch among the uplands in the Scandinavian Nordland. Yet these few pastures are uncropped and unscythed. The river has good coal-beds and fine forests, and, south of the forest region, level, stoneless plains, covered for hundreds of leagues with the richest "black earth" soil, only wanting the plow of the farmer to yield abundant harvests. Still farther south the river flows through a region where the vine grows in the open air. Altogether, it is believed that, by the expenditure of about one hundred thousand pounds, the Yenisei could be made navigable, though its tributary, the Angora, on the Lake Baikal -an inland sea not much smaller than Lake Superior-and the Obi could be connected with the Yenisei, and the Yenisei with the Lena.

Leaving out of account the numerous other Siberian rivers, all more or less navigable, a country could be thus thrown open equal to the combined territories of all the rivers which flow into the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmora, and the Mediterranean. Yet from these rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean, so cheap is produce in their valleys, one of which con tains over two millions of people, that Captain Wiggins ballasted his ship with black-lead of fine quality. The valleys are full of the most magnificent timber, larch, spruce, etc., which is so little in demand that at the town of Yeniseisk a ship's mast thirty-six inches in diameter at the base, eighteen inches in diameter at the top, and sixty feet long, can be bought for a sovereign, and any number supplied in a

few days; beef costs two and a half pence per pound, the words of Mr. Seebohm, "a colossal fortune and game of all kinds may be got in such abundance awaits the adventurer who is backed by sufficient as to render mere living cheap enough. So abundant capital, and a properly organized staff, to carry on a are corn and hay on the great steppes between Tomsk trade between this country and Siberia, via the Kara and Tjumen that horses are hired for one halfpenny Sea." To-day a fresh market for the disposal of our per mile. A ton of salt, which costs in England fif- manufactures is as much required as it was three teen shillings, is sold on the Yenisei for fifteen centuries ago. Here in "frozen Siberia"-miscalled pounds; and wheat, which commands fifteen or six-is a field richer than Central Africa, and about as teen pounds a ton in London, may be got in any little cultivated as Corea, waiting his energy and his quantity for twenty-five shillings per ton. To use knowledge.

Ho

A SWISS NOVELIST.

OW many, we wonder, of the crowds of tourists who annually flock to the "playground of Europe," know more of its people than can be learned in the conventional tour and in the salons of monster hotels? Does one person in ten concern himself to inquire into the Constitution and politics of this country? Has it ever occurred to one person in twenty to find out whether Switzerland boasts a contemporary literature? A few may recollect the fierce war waged between Bodmer and Breitinger and the pedantic German Gottsched concerning the respective merits of English and French literature which called forth the critical powers of Lessing. The names of Zimmermann, Lavater, the Gessners, Pestalozzi, Sulzer, Orelli, may linger in their memories, but who among them has read Jeremias Gotthelf? Better still, who has read Gottfried Keller? We venture to say not one in a hundred of those who have traversed the length and breadth of Keller's green Fatherland, have climbed its most inaccessible peaks, and "done" all its regulation sights. It is true that Switzerland is not rich in native literature; it has inspired far more than it has produced. It possesses now, however, a writer of such undoubted originality that he deserves to be known beyond the narrow limits of his native land. In Germany Keller's fame has been steadily on the increase, and, indeed, she would gladly claim him for her own. But, although Keller has been indirectly influenced by German writers, his most marked characteristic consists in his being a Switzer of the Swiss. It will be our endeavor in this paper to give some idea of this remarkable writer-no easy task, since Keller is peculiarly intangible, his excellences needing to be felt, being often too subtile for words.

In the early part of this century literature revived in Switzerland from a prolonged lethargy. This revival is partly attributable to the influx of Germans driven from home by political troubles. These Germans brought with them much solid

learning and much genuine enthusiasm for literature, and settling, in great part, near the University of Zurich, they exercised a marked influence upon the younger Swiss generation. The result was the production of much mediocre and inadequate literary work; but a few stars arose, and among them one of the first magnitude, namely, Gottfried Keller. Keller was born in Zurich, July 19, 1819. His father, a master carpenter, died while he was an infant, leaving his widow and child in straitened means. After passing through the prescribed school routine, Keller turned to landscape-painting, then his foremost bent, and for this end went to Munich, where art flourished under the eccentric patronage of King Ludwig. Not achieving anything really good, with a wisdom as excellent as it is rare, he abandoned art, returned to Zurich (1842), and occupied himself with literary studies. In 1846 he published a small volume of lyrics, thoughtful and earnest in character, but rising to no heights of lyrical passion, and appealing more to the phantasy than to the emotions. The volume met with a fair success, and Keller continued to study. After a while he perceived that under this autodidactic method he did not advance sufficiently. He therefore went, in 1848, to the University of Heidelberg, passing on to Berlin in 1850, where his first prose work was published. In 1861 he was chosen Staatsschreiber (secretary) to the Canton of Zurich, and a member of the Great Council-i. e., a member of that body to whom in the larger cantons the people delegates its sovereignty. From this post Keller only retired three years ago, to devote himself solely to literature, for which his official duties had left little time. He does not himself think that this occupation with bureaucratic minutiæ did him harm, and it is again characteristic of his perfect mental salubrity that he should have preferred for many years to fill a small post in his native city to living upon the produce of his imaginative gifts. He says that it taught him

« הקודםהמשך »