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safely rest upon it, without argument, their case against the Tomsk forwarding prison.^[1]

1. See Appendix E for statements of other observers with regard to the condition of this prison. An English traveler—Mr. H. de Windt—inspected it last year and says that he "entirely failed to recognize it" from my "ghastly descriptions." I have appended his letters and my replies together with some other material relating to the subject, so that the reader may be able to form an independent judgment, not only with regard to the condition of this particular prison, but with regard to the trustworthiness of certain writers in England who describe Siberian prisons as equal to any in Europe, and who assert that an exile in Siberia "may be more comfortable than in many, and as comfortable as in most, of the prisons of the world."