TOLSTOY'S SECRETARY BANISHED

Evening Star, Issue 14186, 11 October 1909, Page 4

TOLSTOY'S SECRETARY BANISHED

Count Leo Tolstoy is again protesting, against the Government's pecrooctrldon of' his friends and followons, and appealing for punishment to be meted out to himself, and not to others, simply became they follow his example and a'dvicc. His secretary, M. Gooeef, has now been arrested and banished, ostensibly for distributing revolutionary books, which, however, Count Toktoy declares, were exclusively his own productions. Only with the greatest difficulty was +he Governor of InJa. prevailed upon, through the intervention of the daughter of the Duma deputy M. Mnklakoff, who happened to be staying at Yaenaya Polyana, to allow JL Goose! to bosent into exile with some little comfort at Count Tolstoy's expense. On parting withi M. Goosef, Count Tolstoy wept—not, as he' writes, out of.pity for hie secretary, knowing that the inward peace which was his could not bo destroyed by any .external force, but because his feelings were touched at the sight of the firm cheerfulness with which M. Goosef met his fate. Onlv a. few months ago Count Tolstoy's great friend, M. Tchcrtkofl, was banished on similar grounds, while here in St. Petersburg the meet depressing effoct has been produced by the unaccountable and meet imperious suppression of the literary fund for mutual assistance amongst impoverished writers and men of science. And so ifci goes on in quite the old style of things Russian. At the same time, a subsidised: Press organ, of the Government has just' declared that Russia has net got a Constitution—that, in effect, the Duma docs not limit Autocracy, but is limited by the 1 Autocracy, and that what Sir Edward, Grey and others in England proclaimed to; the world on this head was a delusion and; a snare.—St. Petersburg correspondent ‘Daily Telegraph.'

Bench and Bar.—ln a certain Canadian city a lady was defending am action for: largo sums of money which aho felt she was not morally called upon to pay. When, I it looked as if the case would go agaiuet her efao cold ail her real estate, and hid the proceeds—about £3,ooo—in her stock-' ing. Jodgxnont wbo given against her, and I because she would not pay ju* say where i the money was she w&a sentoooed to a year’s imprisonment. Her conned, tried to; got her released, arid the following convex-, cation formed-part of tho proceedings:— l “Yon admit,” said the Judge, “that this] woman had property to the of ! £3,000?” “ 'Yes, your Honor, " said eons* i «i. “ And yon admit that she fnld (he ) property nod pot the money in her stock- - mgr* “Yes, my lord.” “And do yon| mean to tell tno that the ana cf the lew is i not long enough to reach iif ’