Note 3 — Chapter IV · THE EXILES.

Some idea may be formed of the proportion of the banished who are condemned to hard labour by observing that, of 17,867 exiles passing eastwards through Tiumen prison in 1878 (the year before my visit), 2,252, or one-seventh, were transported for hard labour, and the remainder for “residence for life, or for certain terms in East and West Siberia.” I was told likewise by Mr. Ignatoff, at Tiumen, that about 2,500 hard-labour convicts passed yearly through his hands, and that they spent the first part of their time at Tobolsk. It may be further noticed from my statistics, that during the same year which saw the above number of exiles going eastwards, there passed through the same prison 2,629 persons returning westwards “to their respective homes in Russia;” which expression I do not understand, since I am informed from an official source that the number of persons returning after temporary exile is very small. The law permits those only to go back who are banished by the communes (and then not without their permission), and those who are deprived of particular rights. Four hundred and sixty-two of those condemned to “hard labour,” and 3,488 of those going into “residence,” are marked as minors,—that is to say, children of exiles, and offenders under twenty-one years of age; of which last, I am told, the annual total sent to Siberia does not exceed 300.