until the latter part of the nineteenth century that the immigration to Siberia came to be thoroughly regulated. This was largely brought about by the increased power of officialdom in Siberia, which grew as the country developed, and this factor, combined with the abolition of serfdom in European Russia, had the effect of stopping unauthorized immigration, and of paving the way for an organized system under a State scheme.
But another class of immigrants came into prominence during the latter half of the nineteenth century. These were the political exiles, who for offences of a political nature were required by the authorities to settle in some remote part of the empire, where their influence might not be felt. Siberia was naturally a most suitable place, and the Government was not slow to utilize it for this purpose. During the intellectual revival which followed the abolition of serfdom in the reign of Alexander II., wild and often exaggerated ideals of progress and reform seized a certain section of Russian public opinion. It thereupon became the fashion for the authorities in European Russia, as it still is to some extent, to send out cultured Polish, Finnish and Russian youths to exile in Siberia, whenever their views were considered to be too far in advance of the times. These exiles, although not sufficiently numerous to form a large section of the Siberian community, had nevertheless great influence upon its social development, and on the formation of progressive public opinion in the growing Siberian urban centres.
But undoubtedly the chief element in the evolution of Siberian society, especially during the last fifty years, is to be found in the peasant immigrants from
