In this matter of removing the head-dress, the politicals were very punctilious. Once, on arrival at the Krasnoyarsk prison, which was chiefly cellular, a party of politicals had a serious conflict of opinion with the governor, who ordered that they should be placed in separate cells singly, instead of in association. They resented and positively refused to abide by this order, and demanded to be lodged as heretofore along the road, in company with one another. Pending a change of decision, they remained in the corridor with their baggage, and would not budge a step. The governor of the prison insisted upon compliance with the regulations, and he was backed up by the chief of police, a very blustering and overbearing person. The prisoners would not yield and the matter was referred to higher authority, first to the colonel of gendarmerie, then to the public prosecutor, and lastly to the governor of the district. Nothing could be decided that night, and the prisoners, still obdurate, camped out in the passage, being permitted to have their own way until the district governor had been heard from. As they sat at dinner the next day, the chief of police brought the answer. He was in full parade uniform and wore his helmet. “Gentlemen,” he began ceremoniously, “I am to inform you”—He was abruptly interrupted by the request to first remove his helmet. The officer protested that when in parade uniform he was forbidden to do so. “Then we shall not listen to you,” said the prisoner Lazarev. “We have nothing to do with your uniform. It is a mere question of manners.” “But I really cannot, I will not,” replied the officer. “Then you may take your message back to the governor, we shall not listen to it,” was the answer of the politicals, and their firmness won the day. The result was a concession to their demands. “I wonder how many officials,” remarks Deutsch, “have had to learn this elementary lesson in politeness from us.” The women revolutionists also showed the highest spirit and were always ready to fight for their own rights. A police _ispravnik_ had insulted a political, mistaking him for another with whom he had a difference. It came to the knowledge of the wife of the political, who was a clever resolute woman, and she went straight to the police office and boxed the officer’s ears. The harshness with which one police officer, the chief at Irkutsk, had treated a number of women politicals brought down on him a severe rebuke. The officer accompanied a high official during a visit to the prison of that city. The moment he appeared he was addressed by the leading political prisoner in these words: “We are astonished at your impudence in daring to appear before us, after having by your treatment forced our women comrades into a terrible hunger strike.” The room was hurriedly emptied of all officials, the chief and his suite, and the odious policeman was followed by a chorus of uncomplimentary epithets.