634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



copecks, about from five and two thirds to eight and a half cents. This 

 may seem very little in our conception, but it must not be forgotten 

 that the men are permitted to beg on the way and to work on the 

 rest-days, whereby each one may, if he will, obtain a considerable 

 addition to his allowance. Great sympathy is felt in Siberia with the 

 prisoners, who are never called by any other name than " unfortunates." 

 Every one gives readily, and recollects that he himself, perhaps, or 

 his father or grandfather, may have made the journey thither under 

 similar circumstances. On the whole, transportation on foot is now 

 quite well conducted. Such a journey can not be called a pleasure- 

 trip, but it does not in any way bear the stamp of inhumanity and 

 the terrible character which the sensational reports would impute 

 to it. 



Finally, the prisoner has reached his destination, either alone or 

 with his wife and children, and is allotted accordingly a larger or small- 

 er hut for a dwelling I am speaking particularly of those who had 

 been condemned to death. The chains are not taken off from his hands 

 and feet, but he must work Avith them on. It often happens that he 

 <- dies shortly that is his luck ; or that he will not accommodate him- 

 self to the situation, and leads a wretched existence, and finally goes 

 to ruin, unless he has energy enough left to escape. He is himself 

 committed to the most arduous exertions to better his fate, but, of the 

 thousands and thousands who arrive there, only a very small per cent 

 have the earnest will to do it. The great majority brood over their 

 lot, and think and dream only about the ways and means of bringing 

 about their escape. The convicts are mingled in work with the free 

 laborers, go in and out with them, and do not have to exert them- 

 selves any more or do any harder work than they. The mine is not a 

 prison as we are accustomed to regard prisons. The convict lives 

 free and un watched, alone or with his family, and the only limitation 

 of freedom imposed upon him consists in his being always shackled 

 with chains, whether at work or at recreation, by day and by night, 

 and in his never being allowed to go out of the bounds that are as- 

 signed to him. In a district of six thousand square versts (about 

 eight hundred and sixty geographical square miles), there are only a 

 hundred soldiers stationed to watch the thousands of convicts. Escape 

 under these circumstances is easy, and is a daily event. No one runs 

 away alone ; they generally go in pairs, and after careful preparation. 

 The mine-smith is always ready, for a fee of ten copecks, to be a help 

 in time of need and take off the chains. The fugitives gather up 

 whatever seems useful to them, and travel under cover of darkness 

 on their hazardous journey. On the next morning the director men- 

 tions the fact that A and B have disappeared. "No matter," he 

 coolly remarks, and with that the affair is over for him. The fugi- 

 tives spend the first three or four days in the woods, traveling at 

 night, when they can pass on the highways undisturbed, and will 



