COLONISTS AND EXILES IN SIBERIA. 539 



at escape shortly after his arrival. I am told that many exiles have 

 travelled thus four, five, even six times through the greater part of 

 Siberia. 



Fugitives who yield to the temptation to steal or commit some 

 other crime on the way, come to an untimely end. In such cases the 

 good-nature of the peasant-villagers is transformed into revengeful 

 anger. If he is taken, nothing will save him from an agonizing 

 death. Then a corpse is found on which no marks of violence are 

 noticed. The body is buried, and the finding and burial are duly 

 notified to the magistrates, who inform the governor, and he, in his 

 turn, communicates with the governor - general, but the unhappy 

 victim of popular fury has rotted in his grave before the government 

 medical ofiicer could reach the spot, even if he wished to do so. 

 Upon whom this vengeance has fallen no one knows. In this way, 

 but not by order of the government, an exile may disappear, and no 

 one can tell what has befallen him, no authorities are able to give any 

 information. But every exile who is sent to Siberia knows what 

 awaits him if he should steal or commit any crime when a fugitive. 

 And for this reason it is possible to live here, in the midst of thou- 

 sands of criminals, as securely as anywhere else, perhaps more 

 securely than in our great towns which contain the scum of humanity. 



I have attempted to give a faithful picture of the conditions 

 which hold now, or which held in 1876.^'^ It has not been my inten- 

 tion to soften or embellish. Banishment to Siberia is in all cases a 

 severe punishment. It is more severe in proportion to the culture 

 of the person on whom it falls, and in the eyes of an educated man 

 it must always seem terrible. But banishment to Siberia was never 

 meant to be other than a punishment, and it was meant to fall more 

 heavily on the educated than on the uneducated. The justice of 

 such a principle may be disputed, but it cannot be entirely denied. 

 It is only possible, however, to form a fair idea of the lot of exiles 

 in Siberia when we compare it with that of our own criminals. 



What becomes of the unhappy beings who people our prisons? 

 What becomes of their families, their wives, their children? What 

 fate awaits the prisoners when their time of imprisonment has 

 expired; what have their families to look forward to? 



