PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
Being unexpectedly but agreeably obliged to prepare a second edition before the day for the public appearance of the first, I can do little more than express my gratitude for the favour with which my book has been received, and repeat what has already been printed. The kind and too favourable reviews that have thus far come under my notice seem to call for little remark but of thanks. One journal, however—the St. James’s Gazette—has stated, on the authority of a Russian informant, that ‘official orders were sent before me to the prisons to make things wear a favourable aspect for my visit.’ I venture therefore here to repeat what I wrote to the Editor (but which he did not think fit to publish), that if his Russian informant, or any other, thinks that I have been duped or misinformed, I am perfectly ready to be questioned, and shall be happy to discuss the question in the public press, provided only that my opponent give facts, dates, names, and places, and do not hide behind general statements and impersonalities. My own conviction is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, at all events, I saw Siberian prison affairs in their normal condition.
With the exception, then, of a corrected note which appeared on page 37, vol. i., a slight re-arrangement of the bibliography and appendices, a few verbal alterations, and a new and improved index, this second edition is the same as the first.
H. L.
The Grove, Blackheath,
20th February, 1882.