During the four years that had elapsed since the “May days” there had been four changes of commandant. One of these gentlemen had been superseded and sent to Yakutsk for appropriating to his own private uses one thousand roubles of money sent to the prisoners. Each change of commandant meant some modification of arrangements, and thus by degrees various small improvements were made, among others the breaking down of the partition walls in the rooms; while, in consequence of an appeal made by a prisoner’s influential relations, the Loris Melikov order was finally annulled, and “politicals” were once more allowed to reside in the penal colony when their proportion of years in prison was past. The legal regulations concerning the latter privilege were as follows: in the fulfilment of all hard-labour (or “katorga”) sentences the first one or two years—according to the length of the sentence—are called “probation time”; the remaining years are called “time of alleviation,” and in them every ten months count as a year. In this way, for example, my thirteen years and four months became eleven years and five months; and being sentenced on October 12th, 1884, I should finish my term in February, 1896. The entire “probation time” and two or three years of the “time of alleviation” must be spent in prison; but after that the law provided that the prisoner should be allowed to reside in the “colony,” under police supervision, instead of within the prison walls. Such partially freed prisoners might take up their abode in some house assigned to them, or built by themselves; but they were subject to the rules and regulations laid down for the convicts residing there, ordinary and political alike. It was a great matter to be no longer cooped up day and night in a common room of the prison; the “politicals”—people of culture and refinement—appreciated this particularly, and the withdrawal of the privilege had been a terrible deprivation. The greater, therefore, was the rejoicing when, two years after the “May days,” the new commandant, Captain Burlei, who had succeeded the thief Manayev, informed the captives in the political prison of Kara that some time previously a resolution of the senate had rescinded the adverse decree. The dishonest Manayev had suppressed the document proclaiming this, that he might the more easily continue to conceal his malpractices. Captain Burlei immediately proposed to the governor of the district that steps should be taken forthwith for the release from prison and internment in the “colony” of all those who had become entitled to that right. Before this could be arranged, however, the humane commandant was replaced by Nikolin, who would only allow the new rules to come into force under certain restrictions. The senate had made their decision; the law was there, and must be complied with; but by “administrative methods” he continued to limit its operations.