Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/284

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SIBERIA

political excitement among a certain class of the Kiev university students, and the meetings that were held for the purpose of drafting and discussing the proposed address to Skóbelef were thought by the Government to have in view another and a more dangerous end. They were soon prohibited, therefore, by the authorities, and several of the students who had taken a prominent part in them were arrested on suspicion, held for a time in prison, and then sent by administrative process to the northern province of Vólogda. Among the students thus exiled was Ivan N———, the son of a wealthy landed proprietor in Khersón. When the young man had spent three or four months in the northern village to which he had been banished, his father, by means of a liberal expenditure of money, succeeded in getting him transferred to the province of Khersón, where the climate is milder than in Vólogda, and where the young exile was nearer his home. He was still kept, however, under police surveillance, and was regarded by the authorities as "politically untrustworthy." In April, 1879, General Todlében was appointed governor-general of Odéssa, with unlimited discretionary power, and as soon as he reached his post he proceeded to extirpate "sedition" in the provinces under his jurisdiction by banishing to Siberia, without trial or hearing, every man, woman, or child who was registered as a suspect in the books of the secret police, or who happened at that time to be under police surveillance. Among such persons was the unfortunate Kiev student Iván N———. His transfer from the province of Vólogda to the province of Khersón had brought him within the limits of the territory subject to the authority of Governor-general Todlében, and had thus rendered his situation worse instead of better. It was of no use for him to plead that the Government, in consenting to his transfer from a northern to a southern province, had intended to show him mercy, and that to send him to Siberia would be to punish him a second time, and with redoubled severity, for an