6z6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in which the residence of persons of that class will justify the ap- 

 plication of such a designation occupy a relatively small space in the 

 country. It can not be denied that the transported persons, so far 

 as they do not work in the mines, are subjected to a very strong re- 

 straint, but it is in no respect more severe than that which is im- 

 posed in the houses of correction of our highly civilized lands. Sibe- 

 ria is regarded by the mass of readers as a country full of discomfort 

 and misery, and it is very hard to controvert that view. It is too 

 much the fashion to consider the Russians as barbarians, and to accuse 

 them of inhumanity. I feel compelled to enter a decided protest 

 against so unjust a condemnation, and to assert as a fact that there are 

 greater barbarians in Europe than the Russians. We shall have to 

 apologize for the whole human race, before we can describe the Rus- 

 sians as the greatest barbarians. I myself formerly believed that one 

 had only to scratch Russians to bring out their barbarism, but I have 

 more recently had occasion to form my judgment from my own 

 unprejudiced observations on the spot, and I consider it my duty, and 

 the duty of every just and truthful man, to bear witness to the in- 

 controvertible truth, and give an energetic protest against such sys- 

 tematic a priori depreciation of a people I have learned to respect. It 

 is true that there are, in the great Russian Empire, as well as in other 

 countries, men who might, should, and ought to be better, but we curi- 

 ously see only the shady side of Russian conditions, and then per- 

 versely suppose that there is nothing good on the other side of the 

 Muscovite lines. I can readily and with perfect conviction declare 

 that, among the educated Russians of Russia, there are manifest a 

 spirit of progress and a striving after better and higher things such as 

 exist nowhere else, and that many of them afford rare examples of 

 magnanimity and generosity. If we consider it from a purely geo- 

 graphical point of view, we shall find that Siberia is in no way, as a 

 whole, a land of misery and terror. It is true that away up in the 

 north are the immense ice-fields and the high moors, and the short, 

 insignificant vegetation of the tundra does not offer an attractive pict- 

 ure ; but there is also a larger Southern Siberia, where there is room 

 for all kinds of enterprise, reward for every kind of work, and good 

 living for every industrious man. Material suffering can not be spoken 

 of in this [part of the land ; but in an intellectual sense there is much 

 lacking without which we can hardly think of life. Thus, it seems to 

 us something to be lamented that the people are four or five weeks 

 behind the current events of the world. But if the question is one 

 of making a living by means of hard work and a rugged constitution, 

 and particularly of making a new start in life, then Siberia is to be 

 preferred to nearly every other country. Yes, a new era has dawned 

 over Siberia, and along the highways famous for " sighs, where night 

 and day, with the frightful clang of chains, with lamentations, groans, 

 and agony, the prisoners were driven on by the cruel knout," are now 



