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
- Sentenced by Administrative Order means sentenced
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.
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.
