132 SIBERIA 



loo students assembled at the court. The police 

 wished to expel them from the court, a course pf 

 action against which the magistrate very rightly pro- 

 tested, and they were allowed to remain. After the 

 proceedings were over and the students left the court, 

 the police followed, keeping close to them. There 

 appears to have been some hustling and the police, 

 not being represented in sufficient force, called upon 

 the riff-raff of the streets to support them, as a 

 resuh of which the students were badly mauled and 

 some of them had to be treated in the local hospital. 

 Gn the following day i,ooo students assembled in 

 the neighbourhood of the university to make a public 

 protest against the treatment they had received on 

 the 1 8th. A strong force of police arrived on the 

 scene, but not being considered sufficient the military 

 were called out, and the Vice-Governor came down 

 and urged the students to break up. This they 

 refused to do except on the condition that the police 

 were withdrawn. Their request was acceded to and 

 the students dispersed without making any disturb- 

 ance. Again the trouble appeared to be at an end 

 and no disturbance would have occurred if the 

 mistake had not been made of prosecuting a number 

 of the students who were concerned in the demon- 

 stration, the late Minister of the Interior having 

 arrived on the scene to investigate the case. 



A banished nobleman— with whom I engaged in 

 several passages-of-arms, as he was particularly 

 critical of the Government, which he blamed for 

 many things, from " men having no work to others 

 having too much money " — condemned the action of 

 the police. Some of my English friends were of the 

 same opinion, but others upheld the action pf the 

 authorities. 



It is, of course, difficult to arrive at a just 

 idecision in a case of this kind, especially as, on 



