Strange to say, she is convinced in her own mind that the Emperor and Empress of Russia are ignorant of a great deal that is done in their name; or, as the phrase is, "By order of the Czar;" and that they know little of the results of those Edicts and Ukase which are causing such dire misery to thousands of their subjects, not only to the long-suffering Jews but also to Christian women and children; and it is her belief that if the truth could be placed before them, as she hopes to place it, they will attack the evil even at the cost of life or crown.
This is quite a different view from that which obtains generally; and if Miss Kate Marsden should be able to prove her point, and bring before them the pictures of what she may see on her journey to and from Siberia, she will score a result such as has fallen to no one's endeavour hitherto.
It is only now and then in a lifetime that we meet a woman capable of such a grand work as this which Miss Kate Marsden has taken upon herself; and the reason is that the qualifications necessary are so rarely found in combination in one and the same individual. Many among us may have one or other of the characteristics, but it is the existence of them all in one person that makes the heroine and gives the power.
You cannot be an hour in Miss Kate Marsden's company without becoming aware of her enthusiasm, her courage, her self-devotion, her fearlessness, and above all her simple child-like faith. It avails nothing that you place before her the trials, the horrors, the dangers, the possible failure of such an undertaking as hers. The necessity of the work to be done she considers imperative, and the certainty in her mind that it is her mission to do it carries all before it.
The bravest among us would hesitate before deciding upon a tour in Russia and Siberia, supposing it were one of pleasure or of scientific research, because even under these favourable conditions we should be subject to ignominious surveillance night and day, and the chances of leaving the country when we pleased would be very small; but what can we say of a young and delicate woman who, voluntarily and without thought of self, deliberately walks into the country where deeds are done daily which make us shrink with fear, and which, for very shame for the century in which we live, we try hard not to believe? It is as if with eyes open she walked into a den of lions and expected them to give her a loving welcome and a free egress.
Heaven help her, for she is in the midst of it and has begun her work; the result of her fearlessness remains to be seen. I doubt greatly whether we shall be allowed to receive reports of her daily life out there, even where postal regulations are in force. We can but follow her on her way from Moscow to Tomsk in thought, and picture to ourselves the thousands of exiles she will find waiting there herded together like brute beasts. She will not turn from them, even though typhoid be raging amongst them—one can see her moving in and out among these miserable, debased human beings, who lie tossing on those terrible wooden shelves, helping them according to their needs; for she carries with her remedies for pain and disease of body, and her simple faith will find means of comforting heart and soul.
If any of those twenty thousand exiles who have this year trod the weary way between Petersburg and Tomsk, and on again to the far-off districts of Siberia, should hear of the coming of this gentle woman, strong only in her love for them, I think it would kindle a spark of hope again in their hearts. They would know that at least they were remembered by someone in the land of the living.
Miss Kate Marsden has dared so much for these poor suffering ones that she will not easily be turned aside by excessive politeness or brutality on the part of officials from seeing the actual state of things. She will not, I think, be content with viewing the Provincial Prison at Tomsk, which is light and airy and occupied by local offenders, instead of the forwarding prison which, according to the accounts that reach us, is a disgrace to the civilized world, and where the exiles are lodged while waiting to be "forwarded."
I pity Miss Kate Marsden if it should ever be her lot to witness the knout used to a woman without the power of stopping it, or retaliating upon the brute who is inflicting it. It would be almost the death of her.
If we have been successful in interesting the readers of The Argosy in this lady and her mission, they will like to know that she is not a wilful person starting off on a wild-goose chase on a generous impulse without at all counting the cost. On the contrary, the work she is now doing has been the desire of her life, and all the training and discipline to which she has subjected herself has been for the purpose of fitting her for it.