it may be deemed expedient to conceal; but the traditions of the colonists in various parts of Siberia afford glimpses of the truth. One part of the Barabinski Steppe was redeemed from its original desert state by a colony of crown peasants, transplanted thither from the government of Kasan. Another part of the same steppe was converted from a desolate wilderness into a fertile corn-producing country by the bright idea of a governor-general of Siberia, who persuaded the Empress Catherine to allow him the recruits of one conscription for this purpose. To work the mines of Nertshijnsk, the Emperor Alexander despatched 10,000 peasants from the interior of Russia; and all these labourers, and many more in like manner forced to change their domicile, belong, we must remember, to a people proverbial for their attachment to the place of their birth, and whom all the advantages offered could not induce to emigrate voluntarily. The suffering and injustice inflicted in this way does not, however, extend beyond one generation, and the Siberians are not, as we have seen, a melancholy and morose, but, on the contrary, a cheerful and sociable race. Among the compulsory settlers in Siberia, who can neither be reckoned among the political exiles nor the convict colonists, are also various sectarian communities, whose religious opinions being at variance with the state religion, have caused them to be transplanted to this receptacle for all the divergent minds of the Russian empire, and who rank among the most respectable individuals in the heterogeneous population.

From the reign of Peter the Great to the present moment, exile to Siberia as a punishment for political offences has been of constant recurrence, and most of the romance of Russian history is connected with the frozen steppes of that country. To enumerate all the illustrious names that have swelled the list of exiles up to the reign of Alexander, would be to write the history of the innumerable conspiracies which at various periods have shaken the throne of Russia, of the cruel caprices of a race of absolute and unscrupulous despots, and of the various individual passions which, under governments such as that of Russia, can always find means of making the public authorities the avengers of private hatreds. From the reign of Alexander up to the present time, sentence of exile to Siberia for political offences has perhaps been more frequently pronounced than before; and as within this period the victims have mostly suffered for opinions, not for criminal deeds, and in many instances for opinions which, judged from the point of view of absolute right, must be pronounced to be noble and generous, though, in opposition to the reigning system in the country, the fate of these exiles has elicited the sympathy of Europe in a far higher degree than was ever called forth by the fall of court favourites, whose change of fortune was generally caused by an inordinate and selfish ambition. That to the latter, life in Siberia was but a succession of hardships, privations, and humiliations, history affirms; but what may be the fate of the exiles in the present day there are no more authentic means of ascertaining than the narratives of the few west Europeans who have visited Siberia, and the inferences which may be drawn from the general system of convict colonisation followed in the country, and from the spirit which pervades society there.

A regular system of convict colonisation was commenced in 1754, during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth, who was too tender-hearted to sign the

death-warrant even of the most atrocious criminal, though she tolerated and countenanced the most barbarous cruelties; but it was carried on without any attention to the necessities of the various localities, and was found not to work as favourably as might be desired. The existing irregularities having been brought to light by the census taken in Siberia in 1819, new regulations were issued in 1822; and these were further improved upon in 1840, and brought into harmony with the improved penal code of the country. Notwithstanding the energetic endeavours of Peter the Great to force European civilisation upon his people, he took little pains with regard to the necessary preliminary process of humanising the penal laws of the country, and the most barbarous and degrading punishments continued, during his and several subsequent reigns, to be inflicted on persons of all ranks and both sexes. Torture in its most cruel forms was frequently applied, and the bodies of the criminals mutilated in the most inhuman manner, their noses and ears being cut off, and their tongues torn out by the root. Under the reign of Catherine II., mitigations were, however, introduced: torture was abolished, and the nobles, as also the burghers of the two first guilds, were exempted from corporeal punishment. The cruel and capricious Paul I., however, again gave to the world the sad and degrading spectacle of individuals of high social position and refined education wincing under the lash of the executioner; and to this day the knout and the cat-o'-nine-tails are reckoned among the instruments of correction in Russia. The punishments, as regulated by law at present, consist, according to the nature of the offence committed, in money fines, restitution, church penitence, loss of office, forfeiture of privileges and of honour, and in corporeal punishments of various kinds and degrees— regarding which it is, however, expressly stipulated that the sentence must not contain a recommendation 'to flog without mercy,' as was formerly the case-and in banishment to Siberia, which, in cases of heinous offences, is further sharpened by forced labour in the mines and manufactories. Capital punishment is reintroduced, but for crimes of high treason only, and is even in such cases but very rarely applied. From the execution of the Cossack rebel Pugatscher, which took place in Moscow in 1775, fifty years elapsed before sentence of death was again pronounced in Russia, when five of the leaders of the insurrection of 1826, which had nearly deprived the Emperor Nicholas of the throne to which he had just succeeded, were sentenced to lose their life at the hands of the hangman. The knout, in addition to hard labour for life in the mines of Siberia, is the general substitute for capital punishment; and up to 1822, all criminals under this last sentence were branded on the forehead, though the practice of slitting up the ears and nostrils, which continued in force until the reign of Alexander, was discontinued. In cases when the criminals are condemned to banishment for life, the sentence may be rendered still more rigorous by condemnation to civil death, in which cases alone the families of the convicts are not allowed to follow them into exile, and they are neither allowed to receive nor to write letters.

Kasan, in which city there is a bureau of dispatch for exiles, is the starting-point of the detachments of convicts and exiles which periodically leave Russia for Siberia-their halting-places being indicated along the line of route by large four-winged wooden buildings, with yellow walls

it

and red roofs, and surrounded by a stout palisade, erected at every post-station opposite the crown post-house. According to the improved regulations of 1840, the convicts condemned to forced labour are not allowed to travel in company with the criminals of lesser degree destined for immediate colonisation, as was previously the case, but are sent in separate detachments, care being also taken that several days shall elapse between the departures of the successive detachments, so as to preclude all possibility of contact on the road. As far as can be judged from the very imperfect records which are available, the number of convicts transported to Siberia up to the year 1818 averaged 2500 yearly; but among these may be presumed were not numbered the political exiles. In the year 1819, 3141 persons were transported; in 1820, the number swelled to 4051; and from that period until 1823, the annual number was from 4000 to 5000. In 1823 a ukase was issued, ordering that all vagrants who had until then been subjected to forced labour in the fortresses should in future be sent to Siberia as colonists. This of course greatly augmented the number transported; and during the period of six years which elapsed from the date of this ukase to 1829, 64,035 persons, or 10,067 individuals annually, were sent to people these uncultivated wilds. Among these, persons convicted of vagrancy only were, however, in a great majority, the number of criminal offenders condemned to hard labour, amounting only to one-seventh of the whole number. The number of women in proportion to that of the men was one to ten. The convicts travel on foot, all being, on starting, supplied with clothing at the public expense. The men walk in pairs; but, except in cases of extreme criminality, are rarely burdened with fetters during the journey. When passing through towns, however, irons are generally attached to their ankles, and every attempt at escape is punished with corporeal chastisement, without any reference to the cause of exile or the former social position of the individual. To each detachment are generally attached some wagons or sledges for the women, the aged, and the infirm; and these usually lead the van, the younger men following, and the whole party, commonly numbering from fifty to sixty individuals, being escorted from station to station by a detachment of the Cossacks stationed in the villages. That a journey of several thousand wersts on foot, and through such a country as Siberia, must cause much suffering, cannot be doubted; but the stations are not at very great distances from each other, and travellers agree in asserting that the ostrogs-that is, fortified places-in which the convicts rest from their fatigues, afford as comfortable accommodation as any post-house throughout Siberia; besides which the inhabitants of the towns and villages through which they pass, either from that perverse sympathy which so frequently leads the unthinking masses to look upon a doomed felon as upon a victim of oppression, or from a knowledge of how many sufferers for mere opinion may be mixed up with the really guilty individuals in the troop, contribute in every way in their power to mitigate the hardships of their position. The officer commanding the escort is intrusted with the sum stipulated by law for the daily subsistence of each convict, and this must never, under any pretence, pass into the hands of the latter. Many tales are told of the barbarous treatment to which the exiles are subjected during their passage to their various places of destination; but this, it would seem, must be

attributed to the general brutality of the men forming the escort, and not to any desire in the government to render in an indirect way the punishment of the condemned more severe than expressed in the terms of the sentence; though in these cases, as in all others, it is of course the despotic character of the government in Russia which prevents the complaints of the oppressed from being heard, and thus perpetuates all abuses. The convicts who have committed heinous offences, such as murder, burglary, highway robbery, or who have been judged guilty of high treason, and are banished for life and condemned to forced labour, are chiefly under the superintendence of the governor of Irkutsk, who determines whether they are to be employed in the mines and salt-works, or in the distilleries or other manufactories of the crown. For each of these convicts government allows thirty-six paper rubles yearly; but the price of the necessaries of life being in Siberia so very low that the half of this suffices for the support of the convict, the other half goes to form a fund which, in case, after a lapse of four or six years, he gives proofs of reform, is given to him to begin life with in some part of the wide-spread steppes which admits of cultivation, and where a certain portion of land and materials for building a house are assigned to him. The house must, however, be erected by his own labour, and the money laid by for him be applied to the purchasing of the necessary utensils and implements for commencing housekeeping and agricultural pursuits. From this moment the convicts become glebæ adscripti in the strictest sense of the term, as they are, under no pretence whatsoever, allowed to quit the lands assigned to them, or to change their condition; thenceforward also they pay the capitation tax and other imposts in like manner as the other crown peasants of Siberia, and enjoy in return the same rights, such as they are. The children of these convicts, born during the parents' period of punishment, are bound to the soil; but their names are not enrolled among those of the exiles, and the law orders that they shall be treated in the same manner as the overseers of the works.

The second class of convicts is subdivided into five classes—namely, 1. Exiles sentenced to labour in the manufactories; 2. Those sentenced to form part of the labour companies engaged on the public works; 3. Those allowed to work at their respective trades; 4. Those hired out as domestic servants; and, 5. Those destined to become colonists. The last-mentioned of these are at once established on the waste lands allotted to them, each person obtaining an area of not less than thirty acres, and being besides furnished with materials for building a house, with a cow, some sheep, agricultural implements, and seed corn. During the first three years these settlers are exempted from all imposts; during the next seven years they pay half the usual amount of taxes, and in addition to this, fifteen silver copeks annually towards an economical fund erected for their benefit. After the lapse of these ten years they take their rank among the other crown peasants, and are subjected to the same burdens. Except when especially pardoned, these colonists are not either allowed to change their condition, or arbitrarily to quit the lands allotted to them. Colonisation, according to this system, being found excessively expensive, and at the same time very precarious, on account of the frequent desertion of the colonists, who, living without families, were bound by no ties, was given up in

1822, but has since been resumed. In order to promote the speedy amalgamation of the convict population with the free population, the government bestows on every free woman who marries one of these colonists a donation of fifty silver rubles; while the free man who takes to wife a female convict receives a donation of fifteen rubles. Persons enjoying the privilege of collecting gold from the sands of the government of Tomsk, and who employ convicts for the washings, are bound to pay, in addition to the daily wages, one ruble and fifteen copeks in silver towards the economical fund. The convicts employed as domestic servants are fed by their employers, and receive in wages one silver ruble and a half per month. After eight years of such compulsory service, these exiles may also become colonists, and be enrolled among the peasants of the crown. Convict colonists may, should the authorities deem it expedient, be allowed to work at trades in the towns, but they must not become members of corporations or guilds, and must never be considered as being withdrawn from their condition of colonists.

The convicts condemned to forced labour, and employed in the manufactories, are the most leniently dealt with of this class, their position being, indeed, such as to render the sentence a reward rather than a punishment. In the manufactories of Telma more than eight hundred convicts are employed, who receive in wages, according to the work executed by them, from six to fifty rubles per month, besides bread flour; and their wives, who dwell in the village, earn from two and a half to five rubles per month by spinning and weaving hemp. The convicts employed in manufactories, and receiving wages, are, however, generally such as have previously been under stricter discipline, and are in a state of transition towards the position of liberated colonists. In several of the towns of Siberia there are establishments for them during the first stage of their punishment. In these establishments, called Remeslenui Dom, or the House of Trades, the convicts are employed as joiners, turners, saddlers, wheelwrights, smiths, &c. and are housed, clothed, and fed at the public expense, but do not receive wages, their wives and children finding employment in other ways. All orders must be addressed to the officers intrusted with the superintendence of the establishments; but persons having work executed there are at liberty to enter the workshops, and to communicate directly with the different craftsmen, who are not chained, but are guarded by military. In winter the hours of labour are eight, in summer, twelve. The proceeds of the labour of the convicts go to pay the expenses of the establishment, and the surplus is applied to charitable purposes, such as the building and maintenance of hospitals. The convict labourers in the mines of the Ural, as well as those of Nertchynsk, dwell together in large barrack-like buildings, the worst criminals among them being alone chained; but owing to the unhealthy nature of the mines, particularly those of Nertchynsk, their existence is a very miserable one. The usual term of compulsory labour in the mines is twenty years, at the expiration of which the convicts are generally established as colonists in the vicinity of the mines, and continue to labour in them, but as free labourers, receiving wages. In case there be at any time a scarcity of mining labourers, the authorities are at liberty to apply to this purpose exiles who have not been especially sentenced to this punishment; but in such cases the exiles are paid for their