Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1879 — Siberian Exiles. [ARTICLE]

Siberian Exiles.

The Siberian exiles, when released from prison and the mines, have had to choose between starving or stealing the means of subsistence; being deprived of all civil rights, they were not allowed to adopt an honest calling. Such has been tne situation of Siberian exiles for centuries. Under the circumstances it was natural that during the warm seasons the Siberian forests should be filled with criminal vagrants who resorted to begging, stealing, robbing and murder, in order to keep body and soul together. Both the economical and the moral interests of Siberia suffered from these evils, and the Government has often been petitioned to remedy,them. It had been found that, iu order to keep all the exiles in prison, It would hie necessary to erect a large additional number of prisons, costing not less than 50,000,000 roubles. The Goverment could not spare such a sum of money, and so the Czar recently promulgated an order allowing the exiles to pursue different occupations, upon the recommendation and under the surveillance of local authorities. The political exiles, however are denied this right of honestly making a living. Warsaw proposes to enjoy the benefits of a telephone exchange, at a foe for each person using the lines of $36 per year.