SIBERIA AND THE EXILES. 6 37 



most curious relations. I sojourned for a short time at an inn in 

 Tomsk. The host and his wife made an unfavorable, I might say a 

 repulsive, impression upon me. I could not refrain from expressing 

 my suspicions to the chief of police, to whom I had been introduced. 

 To my edification I learned that the host had been condemned to 

 twenty-five years in prison for fraudulent bankruptcy, and his wife to 

 twenty years as his accessory ; that the porter was an old house-breaker, 

 and the four butlers had been compelled to take the involuntary tour 

 to the East for thefts ; the two maids were child-murderers ! Such is 

 the environment in which the people of that district constantly live. 

 On the next day I dined by invitation with a merchant. I met a 

 polite, cultivated company, and learned afterward from my friend 

 the police-officer that the apothecary, who sat next to me, had been 

 transported for poisoning, that three of the guests were fraudulent 

 directors of exploded banks, and two were counterfeiters ! The last 

 two had made a bad impression on me from the beginning, and I 

 could not afterward repress the thought that they were continuing in 

 Siberia to increase as much as they could the circulation of cash in 

 the Russian Empire. If one expresses surprise at such social condi- 

 tions, the answer is, " Oh, please remember that we are in Siberia ! " 

 It is, moreover, not considered necessary to avoid speaking of these 

 matters with reference to any one. The party concerned himself will 

 converse on the subject with the greatest ease, and his frankness re- 

 specting it is really astonishing. I inquired one day in a matter-of- 

 course-way of a Jew named Ephraim, who carried on a small banker's 

 business, a very prepossessing man socially, how he came to settle there. 

 He replied jestingly, and with a wink : " Circumstances are to blame 

 for that ; they compelled me to establish my business here some two- 

 and-twenty years ago." 



Real prisons with locks and walls are comparatively rare in Siberia, 

 and form in all cases, unless the positively evil disposition of the con- 

 vict prolongs his stay, a transitional abode between the unlimited free- 

 dom he enjoyed before his offense and the limited freedom that fol- 

 lows his sentence. Offenders are not cast into narrow cells for the 

 full term of their punishment, but go around free after a short con- 

 finement, and are supported by the contributions of their former 

 colleagues, while they are afforded full opportunity to found a new 

 existence. The contrasts between the positions which released pris- 

 oners may attain in Siberia and the offense which led to their exile 

 are frequently quite comical. The child-murderer becomes a trusted 

 nurse, the burglar an overseer, the thief a confidential servant ! But 

 a practical Christianity is exercised toward the fallen one. The Gov- 

 ernment and private persons rival one another in pointing out and 

 clearing the way of reform for the wanderer. In Kazmetak, we 

 visited the local prison, which is unique in its way. It was of im- 

 mense capacity, and was so arranged as to permit a complete separa- 



