178 FORESTRY IN EASTEKK RUSSIA. 



of the life of the criminal is simply at the discretion of 

 the executioner who wields this murderous implement. 

 It is used only in exceptional cases of incorrigibility — in 

 fact, the prison director at Tiumen stated that, out of 

 80,000 exiles who had passed through his hands, only one 

 had been flogged ; and the doubtful excuse is offered for 

 it that, as an escaped criminal knows he can commit half- 

 a-dozen murders without danger of hanging, some other 

 strong deterrent is needed to protect the inhabitants. 

 This is not by any means a fanciful danger, as may be 

 judged by this account of an approach to the penal 

 colony of Kara, in the Trans-Baikal province : — 



' " As we drove along and darkness crept on, there passed 

 us labouring men, who saluted us. ' Who,' said I, ' are 

 they ? ' ' They are convicts,' said the Colonel (the com- 

 mandant of the colony.) ' Convicts,' said I ; ' How then are 

 they loose?' 'Oh,' said he, 'a large proportion of the 

 condemned — perhaps half — ^live out of their prisons in their 

 houses en famille. But they ought not to be out after 

 dark.' I then began to inquire respecting the crimes of 

 the prisoners, and was informed that there were in the 

 place about 800 murderers, 400 robbers, and 700 vagrants, 

 or brodiagi (a class mostly composed of convicts who have 

 escaped and been recaptured) ; and having been told what 

 proportion of these were loose, I was not surprised to hear 

 the Colonel say he usually, if possible, avoided being out 

 at night. I approved of his caution." ' 



