Page 810 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 6

Alexey Alexandrovitch had gained a brilliant victory at
the sitting of the Commission of the 17th of August, but
in the sequel this victory cut the ground from under his
feet. The new commission for the inquiry into the
condition of the native tribes in all its branches had been
formed and despatched to its destination with an unusual
speed and energy inspired by Alexey Alexandrovitch.
Within three months a report was presented. The
condition of the native tribes was investigated in its
political, administrative, economic, ethnographic, material,
and religious aspects. To all these questions there were
answers admirably stated, and answers admitting no shade
of doubt, since they were not a product of human
thought, always liable to error, but were all the product of
official activity. The answers were all based on official data
furnished by governors and heads of churches, and
founded on the reports of district magistrates and
ecclesiastical superintendents, founded in their turn on the
reports of parochial overseers and parish priests; and so all
of these answers were unhesitating and certain. All such
questions as, for instance, of the cause of failure of crops,

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