Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/119

Rh The natural result of such overcrowding as this, in old buildings, not properly warmed, ventilated, or drained, is an extremely high death-rate. The following table of sickness and mortality is from the annual report of the inspector of exile transportation for the year 1885.

The significance of the figures in the foregoing table will become apparent if the reader will take into consideration the fact that the average death-rate in English towns is from 1.9 to 2.5 per cent. Even in the most benighted and unheathful parts of Siberia, where there are no physicians, where the peasants are densely ignorant, and where no attention whatever is paid to the laws of health, the death-rate rarely exceeds 6 per cent. In the Tiumén forwarding prison in 1885 it was 23.1 per cent. Nor was the year 1885 an exceptional year in the sense of being worse than usual.