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to conceal it from me. The acting governor of this province said to me very frankly yesterday that the condition of the Tomsk prison is azhásnoi [awful], but that he cannot help it. . . . What I have previously written and said about the treatment of the political exiles seems to be substantially true and accurate,—at least so far as Western Siberia is concerned,—but my preconceived ideas as to their character have been rudely shaken. The Russian liberals and revolutionists whom I have met here are by no means half-educated enthusiasts, crazy fanatics, or men whose mental processes it is difficult to understand. On the contrary, they are simple, natural, perfectly comprehensible, and often singularly interesting and attractive. One sees at once that they are educated, reasonable, self-controlled gentlemen, not different in any essential respect from one's self. When I write up this country for The Century, I shall have to take back some of the things that I have said. The exile system is worse than I believed it to be, and worse than I have described it. It is n't pleasant, of course, to have to admit that one has written upon a subject without fully understanding it; but even that is better than trying, for the sake of consistency, to maintain a position after one sees that it is utterly untenable.
