524 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



no cares about their household expenses, if they will use their hands 

 at all; people are willing to help them with this and that, and if a 

 bountiful Heaven will only be moderate enough for a few years in 

 the outpouring of its blessings, so that the price of grain and stock 

 may not fall too low, a tea-caddy and cups will adorn a corner 

 table, and silk coverlets the big double-bed, shining images the 

 right-hand corner, and indescribably noble pictorial representations 

 of the hunting of the lion, tiger, bear, wolf, elephant, stag, and 

 crocodile the walls of the cleanly-kept " best room ", which is never 

 awanting in the better class of peasant houses. 



A domestic life scarcely differing from that already described 

 beckons to every convict who is exiled to Siberia, to one sooner, to 

 another later, if he wishes to attain to it, if he lives long enough, 

 and is to a certain extent favoured by fortune. While in Siberia 

 I came to have views about exiles and banishment very different 

 from those I had held before visiting the country; but I may 

 remark at the outset that I am not one of those who bestow more 

 sympathy upon a murderer, a robber, an incendiary, a thief, or any 

 other scoundrel, than upon the industrious paterfamilias who 

 strives, in the sweat of his brow, to bring up a numerous family 

 honestly, and that I have never been able to soar to that loftiness 

 of view which seeks to mitigate all punishment and relax all con- 

 finement. 



On an average, fifteen thousand people are sent from Russia, 

 " verschickt ", as the expression is among the German Russians. 

 Those who have been guilty of grave crimes are sentenced for life, 

 of less serious offences for a number of years. It is not within my 

 province to discuss the severities or deficiencies of the Russian penal 

 code; but the fact that the penalty of death is imposed only for the 

 gravest and rarest of all crimes does not suggest too great severity. 

 But it is undoubtedly a hardship that exiles sentenced for political 

 causes should be treated on the way to Siberia, and often when 

 there, exactly like common criminals. 



Condemned exiles are first transferred from the prison in the 

 district town to that in the capital of the government, and thence 

 transported by rail or by the ordinary peasant- wagon to Nijni-Nov- 



