COLONISTS AND EXILES IN SIBERIA. 



517 



them, freed them from all the obligations of citizenship, permitted 

 them to wrest from his land what it would yield, placed no hin- 

 drances in the way of their prosperity, protected them, as far as 

 possible, from the oppressions of unjust officials, and was, besides, a 



Fig 74.— Miners in the Altai letuining from Work. 



benefactor to their children in that he compelled at least some of 

 them to attend school. The officials under whose superintendence 

 they were, stood far above the majority of the servants of the 

 crown as regards culture; nearly all had studied in Germany, not a 

 few were even of German extraction, and brought, if not German 



