Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/655

Rh rarely have to take the trouble to hide themselves. More than once have we met such desperadoes on the road, been begged from and given, in regular Siberian style. If a police-officer casually comes in the way, he will offer his mite very quietly, without asking a question. "Let them go, it's no matter," is the refrain of the officers. The farmers take the best of care of the fugitives, and that quite systematically. At night, before bedtime, provisions for any passing "unfortunates" are placed at the windows in all the villages on the roads leading to Russia. When a pair of such men come into the village, they go around from house to house, take the food they find set out, as much as they want, with a little provision for the road, and proceed to the bath-house, at the end of the village, where it is always pleasantly warm, to sleep; and this they do with the greatest security, for they know that, in case of danger from the military patrol, the nearest farmer will send his son or a servant to the bath-house to warn any "unfortunates" that may be lodging there. The farmer is the providence of these people.

After the fugitives have put a distance of one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles between themselves and the mines, the journey becomes easier and they appear more openly. They can venture to ask for a lodging from any of the farmers, and to take horses from the back of the village and ride on them to the next village. There they will unbridle the beasts and start them back toward where they came from, mount fresh horses, and so on for hundreds and hundreds of miles. But the horses are every time carefully started back to their homes. Everything goes smoothly, and the sympathy of the people is inexhaustible, so long as the "unfortunate" does not steal. As soon as he appropriates the smallest portion of strange goods, he seals his fate. The whole village turns out and pursues the thief, who is beaten down like a dog, wherever and whenever he is found; and he is always found. The result of this inexorable popular justice is, that hardly any thieves are to be found in Siberia, and that no country enjoys greater security than this colony of criminals. But, one may ask, "Are not the people punished who execute this lynch-law?" It must be remembered that the mining district embraces an area at least five times as large as that of the State of New York, that the population is relatively small, and that in most cases no one cares for slain fugitives. If the officers are informed of the occurrence, they will simply remark that no harm has been done. The report is sent to St. Petersburg, and is lost in the flood of similar documents. The escape of convicts is, as we have remarked, a daily event, and it is of little consequence to the magistrates whether one more or less has been captured or killed. Of the fifteen thousand prisoners annually brought into the district, an average of five thousand escape. These are the desperate ones who stake everything to obtain freedom again. If they are brought back, they flee again. The number of those who escape two or three or more times,