34 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



had to and attend to it properly, yet his salary was 

 but seventy rubles a month. 



The pristav scouted the idea that Russian officers 

 were naturally any more dishonest than others. The 

 trouble with most of them is, he said, that their salaries 

 are simply not sufficient to keep them from starving. 

 They are obliged to take bribes in order to live. Yet 

 if they are found out, they are punished and disgraced. 

 Of all the overworked and underpaid people in the 

 world, the pristav thought, Russian officials walked off 

 with the honors. It was the same in every district 

 in the empire — thousands of cases pigeon-holed be- 

 cause there were not officers enough to dispose of 

 them. 



We spoke of prisons and Siberia. The pristav had 

 never heard of Mr. Kennan or the Century Magazine. 

 This was not surprising, as his information of the outer 

 world was all obtained through the medium of the 

 Russian press. Yet it seemed curious in a man of 

 exceptional intelligence and good education, living 

 but seventy miles from St. Petersburg. During the 

 past year five people had been exiled to Siberia from 

 his district. That was about the average number per 

 annum. All of them were either criminals or rogues, 

 sent away by the mirs for persistent worthlessness. 

 Not one was a " political." 



About the prisons in Siberia the pristav didn't know. 

 He had never been there, he said, and so could not 

 speak from personal knowledge. He had heard that 

 some of them were not in good order. But the pris- 

 ons of European Russia he knew, having been pristav 

 in two districts and visited many others. He begged 



