was submitted to General Korsackoff
for approval or revision. The general commuted the sentence of three
men in the first grade to twenty years labor. Those in the second
grade sentenced to death were relieved from this punishment and placed
on the same footing as their companions. In the third grade the
original sentence (at the time of banishment) was increased by one or
two years labor. Other penalties were not changed.

During my stay in Irkutsk the four prisoners condemned to death
suffered the extreme penalty, the execution occurring in the forest
near the town. A firing party of forty-eight men was divided into four
squads. According to the custom at all military executions one musket
in each squad was charged with a blank cartridge. The four prisoners
were shot simultaneously, and all died instantly. Two of them were
much dejected; the others met their deaths firmly and shouted "_Vive
la Pologne_" as they heard the order to fire.

I was told that the crowd of people, though large, was very quiet,
and moved away in silence when the execution was over. Very few
officers and soldiers were present beyond those whose duty required
them to witness or take part in the affair.

One of the most remarkable escapes from Siberia was that of Rufin
Piotrowski, a Polish emigrant who left Paris in 1844 to return to his
native country, with impossible plans and crude ideas for her relief.
The end of his journey was Kamimetz, in Podolia, where he gave himself
out as a Frenchman, who had come to give private lessons in foreign
languages, and received the usual permit from the authorities without
exciting any suspicion. He was soon introduced into the best society;
and the better to shield his connections, he chose the houses of
Russian employes. His security rested upon his not being supposed to
understand the Polish language; and, during the nine months that he
remained, he obtained such command over himself, that the police had
not the slightest suspicion of his being a Pole. The warning voice
came from St. Petersburg, through the spies in Paris.

Early one winter's morning he was roughly shaken out of slumber by the
director of police, and carried before the governor of the province,
who had come specially on this errand. His position was represented to
him as one of the greatest danger, and he was recommended to make a
full confession. This for many days he refused to do, until a large
number of those who were his accompli