Daily Yellowstone journal., 1888-06-07

eyelids; his swollen nostrils and mouth
are covered with sores. Still he pursues
his march toward the border chain of
Siberia, and his breast beats more strongly
and faster as he perceiyes the blnish hills
Of the Ural on the horizon.
Thirty thousand men are continually
living this life, and hundreds of thou
sands of people have sought to gain lib
erty in this way during the last fifty
years. Thousands have found their
grave in the ''Taiga," and happy were
those whose eyes were closed by a de-
voted fellow traveller. Thousands have
returned of their own accord to the lock-
ups, when the mercury was freezing and
the frost stopped the circulation of the
last drop of blood in their emaciated
bodies. They submitted themselves to
the unavoidable 100 lashes, they were
taken back TO the penal settlements of
Transbaikalia, and the next spring they
tried the same journey again, with more
experience. Other thousands have been
hunted down, seized or shot by the
Bouriats or some Siberian trappers.
Others, again, were seized a few days
after having reached the soil Of their
''mother Russia, 7" after having thrown
themselves at the feet of their old parents
in the village they had left many years
before 10 satisfy the caprice of the is,
pravnik or the jealousy of the local
usurer.
There is a touching trait in the char
acter of the common, uneducated Rus
sian; a trait of love for his kindred which
makes life far away from the circle of
his relatives almost unbearable to him.
The common Russian, exiled to Siberia,
and deprived of all civil and personal
rights, feels himself in his place of ban.
ishment a. in a grave. He cannot read
or write TO keep up q correspondence
with his relatives in Russia, nor are the
latter in a position to send letters TO him,
being equally unfamiliar with reading
and writing. In the course of years he
becomes homesick, and he undertakes
the long westward journey, hoping to
reach his native place and see his loved
ones once more. As to the perspective
of being arrested and banished again he
cares little about il. He is accustomed
to prison life, and knows that nothing
could keep him in his new place of BAN
ishment il the idea TO visit his relatives in
Russia should again get into his head.
There are hundreds of Migrants in Siberia
who live thus continually from year to
year, one year tramping from Siberia to
Russia, another year marching a con-
victs, under a military escort, back to r.
kutsk.
There is a sort of tacit mutual agree
ment between the Migrants and the ST.
berian peasants. As long as nothing is
stolen, or nothing offensive done, by the
ramblers, they may be sure of not being
disturbed by anybody. But as soon as
any one of them breaks the agreement
the Siberian peasant becomes pitiless, and
the crime OF yagrant has a disastrous
effect on all. The Siberian ''oblavan-
battue against the vagrants-is famous
for its ferocity. The peasants arm them
selves with axes and sticks and guard all
the roads leading out of or into the vii
lagos; the hunters and trappers spread
through the forest; every suspicious
Traveller is arrested; in a few days the
prisons and lockups of the entire locality,
which often embraces hundreds of square
miles, are filed with seized Migrants,
who, after receiving the 100 lashes pre-.
scribed by the law, are sent to the gold
washings in Transbaikalia. The rob
lava" is dreaded even by the most daring
and experienced Migrants. For this
reason they are anxious to prevent the
commission of crime by any one Of them,
and they punish the guilty themselves
with even greater severity than do the
authorities. Michael Malkoff in Chicago
News.