ny
exiles choose to remain when their term of banishment is ended. A
laboring man is better paid for his services and is more certain of
employment than in European Russia. He leads a more independent life
and has better prospects of advancement than in the older
civilization. Many Poles say they were drawn unwillingly into the acts
that led to their exile, and if they return home they may be involved
in like trouble again. In Poland they are at the partial mercy of
malcontents who have nothing to lose and can never remain at ease. In
Siberia there are no such disturbing influences.

About ten thousand exiles are sent to Siberia every year. Except in
times of political disturbance in Poland or elsewhere, nearly all the
exiles are offenders against society or property. The notion that they
are generally 'politiques,' is very far from correct. As well might
one suppose the majority of the convicts at Sing Sing were from the
upper classes of New York. The regular stream of exiles is composed
almost entirely of criminal offenders; occasional floods of
revolutionists follow the attempts at independence.

I made frequent inquiries concerning the condition of the exiles, and
so far as I could learn they were generally well off. I say
'generally,' because I heard of some cases of poverty and hardship,
and doubtless there were others that I never heard of. A large part of
the Siberian population is made up of exiles and their descendants. A
gentleman frequently sent me his carriage during my stay at Irkutsk.
It was managed by an intelligent driver who pleased me with his skill
and dash. One evening, when he was a little intoxicated, my friend and
myself commented in French on his condition, and were a little
surprised to find that he understood us. He was an exile from St.
Petersburg, where he had been coachman to a French merchant.

The clerk of the hotel was an exile, and so was one of the waiters.
_Isvoshchiks_, or hackmen, counted many exiles in their ranks, and so
did laborers of other professions. Occasionally clerks in stores,
market men, boot makers, and tailors ascribed their exile to some
discrepancy between their conduct and the laws. I met a Polish
gentleman in charge of the museum of the geographical society of
Eastern Siberia, and was told that the establishment rapidly improved
in his hands. Two physicians of Irkutsk were 'unfortunates' from
Warsaw, and one of them had distanced all competitors in the extent
a