The talk turned to the wives of prisoners. The Gorernor told ro that the authorities quite appreciated the evil straights to which a woman might be put through being stranded and alone chris her hmshand was sent for a long term of years to Siberia. When a man is banish from Russia to dibcria his wife may divorce by right. But should she pref to follow her husband the Government will pay the postage of herself and children to the town where the prison is situated. Inter that the woman must shift for herself, though the Government make a meagre contribution of about threcfarthings a day towards the maintenance of exch child, As far as is possible, the prison finds work for the women in the Shape of washing and sewing.
A married convict who behaves himself is allowed to work outside the prison. to live. indeed, with his own family, provided he reports himeelf every day. and pays a certain protion of his wages to the authorities.
Sledges were waiting for us, and away the horses scampered up a hill, where we visited the school for the children of con-viers, clean, neat, and in charge of a gentle-featured matron. Th little ~irls. who were sexing, made us dainty curt as we entered the schoolroom. It happened to be the hour when the bors schooling, but we found them in all busy learning Thouch there was a pathetic ide to it, a smile crept to the owing a clubby little chan. reed seven. mending a bie boot. and doing it awkwardly and with flushed checks—for the high prison authorities and a couple of foreigners were looking on.
Next, a quick ride to another part 0 wooden wail of fir trees standing lat on end, and all sharpened on the top. Every twenty yards there marched hither and thither through the snow a sol with musket acres his shoulder. This was a distributing station, to which batches of convicts are sent from all parts of the Russian Empire to await decision There they shall spend the years of their punishment. Just as we entered a batch of forty men, muffled in heavy grey coats, were starting out in the custody of exactly the same number of soldiers to walk seventy miles to a small prison up country.
Iwas not favourably impressed with the tape." The rooms were over-crowded, and the stench almost choked me. The men looked dirty and ill cared for. They had no work; they were just huddled together, waiting often six or eight months before they were sent off.
In the yard I had caught sight of six young fellows in ordinary civilian clothes, and with certainly nothing of the criminal about them. Afterwards on entering one of the rooms—the brightest and cleanest in the " étape"—these young men stood up and greeted us. Meeting them was the one thing, during my vist to Alexandrovski, that filled me with sorrow. They were boys, the youngest seventeen, the oldest twenty-two, bright and intelli gent. They were political exiles! They had taken part in some boyish Socialistio demonstration against the Gorernment. For this they had already been in prison for a sear, and were now on their way to the dreary frozen province of Yakutsk, under banishment. for ten years.
There is much the traveller is forced to admire about Russia, Tt is a pleasure to find things so much better than sensational writers describe. But for a mighty Government to wreak vengeance on boss inclined to Socialism is so mean and paltry, so very stupid!
The lads, however, didn't scorn to mind. With money supplied by their friends they have had what food they liked; they lini plenty of books and newspapers; one of them had a tittle writing-table, and on it were the photographs of his mother and father.
Tt was now afternoon, and the Governor invited mo to dinner with his fa end the chief prison authorities. It_was bleak, snowy afternoon. But. the Rustians are full of hospitality, and at the ta-the talk drifted to' more pleasant things than convict life. After dinner the Governor got out. his violin, the doctor produced his cello, and with the Governor's daughter at the piano we had an hour of Mozart's trios.
Tt was a little strangeo—in far Sibe in a pleasant drawing-room, a young lady at the piano, and the Governor of the big~ gest prison in Siberia—who ought, I sup-to have been a brutal visaged man ing crtelties—throwing back his long aiz, while his grey eyes sparkled in an ecstasy of musical enjoyment, and then across the road the dark walls of hooded soldiers standing "Wor Cen, Mate?"
ation, but the intention tioned; therefore it may not becut of place to adopt it here. those who may bs suffering from Dad health can. be sprelily relieved from their misery bet he aid of Holloway's Pills and Ointment, equally "ood for the old, yourly, lo-aged. For weak Insvitude, andi similar complaints, these m hoz he equatiel; whilst for skin dice xcs, So-es, uleers, scrofula ant chi wounds they effected curs in eases declared hopeless eminent medical men Full direction asto the use of these remarkable remedies re given to purchasers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.