Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/129

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
A SIBERIAN CONVICT BARGE
107

erected and equipped at a cost of $85,000 by one of Tiumén's wealthy and public-spirited merchants, and was then presented to the city as a gift. One would hardly expect to find such a school in European Russia, to say nothing of Siberia, and indeed one might look far without finding such a school even in the United States. It has a mechanical department, with a steam engine, lathes, and tools of all kinds; a department of physics, with fine apparatus, including even the Bell, Edison, and Dolbear telephones and the phonograph; a chemical laboratory, with a more complete equipment than I have ever seen, except in the Boston Institute of Technology; a department of art and mechanical drawing; a good library, and an excellent museum—the latter containing, among other things, 900 species of wild flowers collected in the vicinity of the city. It is, in short, a school that would be in the highest degree creditable to any city of similar size in the United States.

From Mr. Slovtsóf we obtained the address of Mr. Jacob B. Wardropper, a Scotch gentleman who had for twenty years or more been engaged in business in Siberia; and feeling sure that Mr. Wardropper "VOLUNTARY EXILES."
(DOBROVÓLNI.)
would be glad to see any one from the western world, we ventured to call upon him without the formality of an introduction. We were received by the whole family with the most warm-hearted hospitality, and their house was made almost a home to us during the remainder of our stay in the city.

On the morning after our first visit to the Tiumén forwarding prison we had an opportunity of seeing the departure of a marching exile party. We went to the prison merely for the purpose of getting a sketch or a photograph of it, but happened to be just in time to see a party of 360