Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/388

372 with the season of good weather and good roads. The overcrowding of the Tomsk forwarding prison, with its attendant suffering and mortality, would at once be relieved by the daily shipment of exiles eastward in wagons; the periodical epidemics of typhus fever, due chiefly to overcrowding, would cease; the corrupting influence of étape life upon first offenders and upon the innocent families of banished criminals would be greatly weakened; and, finally, the exiles would reach their destination in a state of comparative health and vigor, instead of being broken down on the road by the hardships and exposures of a thousand-mile winter march.

"Why in the name of all that is reasonable has not this change been made?" I said to Colonel Zagárin when he finished explaining to me the nature of his report. "If it would be cheaper, as well as more humane, to forward the exiles only in summer and in wagons, why does n't the Government do it? Who can have any interest in opposing a reform that is economical as well as philanthropical!"

"You had better inquire when you get to St. Petersburg," replied Colonel Zagárin, shrugging his shoulders. "All that we can do here is to suggest."

The reason why changes that are manifestly desirable, that are in the direction of economy, and that, apparently, would injure no one, are not made in Russia is one of the most puzzling and exasperating things that are forced upon a traveler's attention. In every branch of the administration one is constantly stumbling upon abuses or defects that have long been recognized, that have been commented upon for years, that are apparently prejudicial to the interests of everybody, and that, nevertheless, continue to exist. If you ask an explanation of an official in Siberia, he refers you to St. Petersburg. If you inquire of the chief of the prison department in St. Petersburg, he tells you that he has drawn up a "project" to cope with the evil, but that this "project" has not yet been approved by the Minister of the