copecks, about from five and two thirds to eight and a half cents. This may seem very little in our conception, but it must not be forgotten that the men are permitted to beg on the way and to work on the rest-days, whereby each one may, if he will, obtain a considerable addition to his allowance. Great sympathy is felt in Siberia with the prisoners, who are never called by any other name than "unfortunates." Every one gives readily, and recollects that he himself, perhaps, or his father or grandfather, may have made the journey thither under similar circumstances. On the whole, transportation on foot is now quite well conducted. Such a journey can not be called a pleasure trip, but it does not in any way bear the stamp of inhumanity and the terrible character which the sensational reports would impute to it.
Finally, the prisoner has reached his destination, either alone or with his wife and children, and is allotted accordingly a larger or smaller hut for a dwelling—I am speaking particularly of those who had been condemned to death. The chains are not taken off from his hands and feet, but he must work with them on. It often happens that he dies shortly—that is his luck; or that he will not accommodate himself to the situation, and leads a wretched existence, and finally goes to ruin, unless he has energy enough left to escape. He is himself committed to the most arduous exertions to better his fate, but, of the thousands and thousands who arrive there, only a very small per cent have the earnest will to do it. The great majority brood over their lot, and think and dream only about the ways and means of bringing about their escape. The convicts are mingled in work with the free laborers, go in and out with them, and do not have to exert themselves any more or do any harder work than they. The mine is not a prison as we are accustomed to regard prisons. The convict lives free and un watched, alone or with his family, and the only limitation of freedom imposed upon him consists in his being always shackled with chains, whether at work or at recreation, by day and by night, and in his never being allowed to go out of the bounds that are assigned to him. In a district of six thousand square versts (about eight hundred and sixty geographical square miles), there are only a hundred soldiers stationed to watch the thousands of convicts. Escape under these circumstances is easy, and is a daily event. No one runs away alone; they generally go in pairs, and after careful preparation. The mine-smith is always ready, for a fee of ten copecks, to be a help in time of need and take off the chains. The fugitives gather up whatever seems useful to them, and travel under cover of darkness on their hazardous journey. On the next morning the director mentions the fact that A and B have disappeared. "No matter," he coolly remarks, and with that the affair is over for him. The fugitives spend the first three or four days in the woods, traveling at night, when they can pass on the highways undisturbed, and will
