534 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



That an exile who has been a criminal can thus break with 

 his past is due entirely to his fellow-citizens and the government, 

 who strive, by every means in their power, to further all honest 

 endeavours to begin a new life. Those who desire work get it 

 without mistrust; they are taken into service without anxiety; the 

 former thief is employed as groom, coachman, or cook; the child- 

 murderess is hired to wait upon children ; the convict artisan plies 

 his own trade when his services are required. And we are assured 

 that those who employ them have seldom reason to regret it. Thus 

 many a criminal is gradually restored to society as a respectable 

 citizen, and his sins are not visited upon his children to the fourth, 

 indeed scarcely to the second generation. What is practically 

 impossible with us is quite possible in Siberia to transform a 

 criminal into an honest man. That this does not always succeed, 

 that there are incorrigibles in Russia as well as among us, is freely 

 admitted by the Siberians themselves ; but it is a noteworthy fact 

 that the idler who is cast off by his community in Siberia falls 

 into crime much more readily than the criminal who has suffered 

 punishment relapses into his former habits. 



While the class of exiles whom we have hitherto considered are 

 allowed to follow any occupation they may choose, those who have 

 committed graver crimes are compelled to labour in the mines. 

 With regard to Nertschinsk, in which on an average four thousand 

 of these unfortunate exiles work, I have obtained through General 

 von Eichwald, the present superintendent of the mines on the 

 crown-lands, the most precise information, and what I learned about 

 the convicts themselves may be shortly related as follows: 



All the criminals who are condemned to the mines are brought 

 thither in chains, and are obliged to perform the same amount of 

 work in their fetters as the miners who are free. The intelligent 

 overseer of the mine, under whose command and surveillance they 

 are, treats them well if only to secure his own life and the lives of 

 his family, for he has not sufficient forces at his disposal to quell an 

 insurrection should one arise. The crime of each convict is made 

 known to him; so he asks no questions of the convict himself with 

 regard to his past. But after some time the great majority pour 



