206 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



although fifty-five years old, had the courage and the self-denial to accompany 

 him in his banishment — alleviated the sorrows of his exile. The venerable 

 couple spent twenty-one years in Siberia, and on their return from exile, fifty- 

 two children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, were assembled to meet 

 them at Moscow. The revolution which placed Catherine the Second on the 

 throne had nearly once more doomed the octogenarian statesman to banish- 

 ment, but he fortunately weathered the storm, and died as governor of St. 

 Petersburg. 



In this century, also, many an unfortunate exile, guiltless at least of ignoble 

 crimes, has been doomed to wander to Siberia. There many a soldier of the 

 grande armee has ended his life ; there still lives many a patriotic Pole, ban- 

 ished for having loved his country " not wisely but too well ;" there also the 

 conspirators who marked with so bloody an episode the accession of Nicholas, 

 have had time to reflect on the dangers of plotting against the Czar. 



Most of the Siberian exiles are, however, common criminals — such as in our 

 country would be hung or transported, or sentenced to the treadmill : the as- 

 sassin, the robber — to Siberia ; the smuggler on the frontier, whose free-trade 

 principles injure the imperial exchequer — to Siberia; even the vagabond who 

 is caught roaming, and can give no satisfactory account of his doings and in- 

 tentions, receives a fresh passport — to Siberia. 



Thus the annual number of the exiles amounts to about 12,000, who, ac- 

 cording to the gravity of their offenses, are sent farther and farther eastward. 

 On an average, every week sees a transport of about 300 of these " unfortu- 

 nates," as they are termed by popular comj)assion, pass through Tobolsk. 

 About one-sixth are immediately pardoned, and the others sorted. Murderers 

 and burglars are sent to the mines of Nertschinsk, after having been treated in 

 Kussia, before they set out on their travels, with fifty lashes of the knout. In 

 former times their nostrils used to be torn off, a barbarity which is now no 

 longer practised. 



According to Sir George Simpson's " Narrative of a Journey Round the 

 World " (1847), Siberia is the best penitentiary in the world. Every exile who 

 is not considered bad enough for the mines — those black abysses, at whose en- 

 trance, as at that of Dante's hell, all hope must be left behind — receives a piece 

 of land, a hut, a horse, two cows, the necessary agricultural implements, and 

 provisions for a year. The first three years he has no taxes to pay, and, dur- 

 ing the following ten, only the half of the usual assessment. Thus, if he choose 

 to exert himself, he has every reason to hope for an improvement in his condi- 

 tion, and at the same time fear contributes to keep him in the right path ; for 

 he well knows that his first trespass would infallibly conduct him to the mines, 

 a by no means agreeable prospect. Under the influence of these stimulants, 

 many an exile attains a degree of prosperity which would have been quite be- 

 yond his reach had he remained in European Russia. 



Hofmann gives a less favorable account of the Siberian exiles. In his opin- 

 ion, the prosperity and civilization of the country has no greater obstacle than 

 the mass of criminals sent to swell its population. In the province of Tomsk, 

 which seems to be richly stocked with culprits of the worst description, all the 



