(4) Political exiles, who were sent for political offences and settled as colonists in certain districts, from which they were not allowed to move.
(5) Authorized voluntary immigrants, who came from European Russia and settled under Government supervision.
Of these five, during the last twenty years, the latter type of immigrant has played the most prominent part in the economic and social development of Siberia, and the policy of the Russian Government has been to colonize the most fertile parts of Western and Central Siberia with this class, in order to develop the resources of the empire on modern economic lines, and to provide a growing population to strengthen the eastern frontiers.
Since Siberia has always been connected in the eyes of the Western European public with convicts and exiles, it may be of interest here to examine more closely this section of the community, and to see what part it now plays in the evolution of Siberian society. As I have shown above, great changes have come over the exile system in Siberia during recent years, and the growth of peasant immigration has been accompanied both by a diminution of the number of the criminal prisoners sent into the country, and also by a better regulation of those that remain.
There are recognized under the common law of Russia the following classes of prisoners:—
(1) "Katorgeny Rabotniki," or criminal convicts, sentenced for the worst offences to penal servitude in certain parts of the empire.
(2) Common prisoners, sentenced for smaller
