3 In Alexandrovsk almost all homesteaders have lodgers, and this gives it an urban aspect. I noted seventeen persons in one hut. Such crowded quarters, however, differ little from common wards.
4 Sakhalin is comparable to the most remote places in Siberia. Probably because of the exceptionally rigorous climate, the only settlers were those who had served their sentence on Sakhalin and so, even if they were not accustomed to it, they could come to terms with it. It is obvious that attempts are being made to change this arrangement. While I was there, a certain Juda Gamberg, sentenced to exile in Siberia, was sent to Sakhalin as a settler by order of Baron Korf. He settled in Derbinskoye. Settler Simeon Saulat, who did not serve his sentence in Sakhalin but in Siberia, now lives in Dubky. There are exiles serving in the administra- tion here.
5 In time to come, the selection of new sites will be made by a commission composed of Prison Department officials, a topog- rapher, an agronomist and a doctor. It will then be fairly clear from the reports of the commission why each site was chosen. At present, the usual idea is to settle people along river valleys and near existing or projected roads, and this has some justification. But it is more a matter of routine than a definite system. If they select a particular river valley it is not because it has been in- vestigated more thoroughly than others and is best for farming, but because it is close to headquarters. The southwestern shore is distinguished by its comparatively mild climate, but it is farther from Due or Alexandrovsk than the Arkovskaya valley or the Armudan River valley, and therefore the latter are preferred. When they settle people on sites along the projected road, they are not considering the well-being of the people in the new settle- ment, but instead they are thinking of the officials and the drivers of dog sleighs who will eventually travel along the road. If it were not for this simple plan to settle the barren road with human beings, to guard the road and provide shelter for travelers, it would be difficult to understand the need for the projected settlements on the road running the whole length of the Tym from the upper sources of the river all the way to Nyisky Bay. The people will probably receive money and food supplies from the government for guarding and looking after the road. If those settlements become a continuation of the present agricultural col- ony, and if the administration is dependent on rye and wheat, Sakhalin will acquire a few more thousand starving, under- privileged paupers fed by nobody knows what.
8 Sakhalin fever (Lat.).
7 This is where the money which should have been received during his term of penal servirude as wages would have come in useful for the settler. According to the law, the prisoner sen- tenced to convict labor is entitled to receive I o percent of the customary wage. For example, if road work is valued at the cus- tomary wage of 50 kopecks a day, a convict is supposed to receive 5 kopecks. During the period of his incarceration the prisoner is permitted to spend not less than half of his earnings. The remaining sum is to be given him upon his release. The money he has earned is not supposed to be applied to the payment of any civil penalties or court costs. In the event of the convict's death, it is to be given to his heirs. Prince Shakhovskoy, who was the commandant of the Due prison in the seventies, expresses his ideas in a report, The Problem of Organizing Sakhalin Island, written in I 878, which should be adopted by the present adminis- tration as being fully informative and a guide to action. "Re- munerating convicts for their work at least provides the prisoner with some private possessions, and private property tends to attach him to a place. By mutual agreement, this remuneration permits the prisoner to obtain better food and to keep his clothing and quarters cleaner; and the grcawr the sum of things which accustom him to conveniences, the greater the suffering when he is deprived of them. The complete absence of these conveniences and the continually melancholy and unfriendly atmosphere in which he lives produce in the prisoner a callous attitude to life, and all the more toward punishment. So it happens that when the number of men flogged reaches 80 percent of the total, we were forced to doubt the advantages of flogging for punishing men who are pre- pared to be flogged simply because they have acquired some neces- sities of life. Remuneration evokes independence among convicts, prevents bargaining of clothes, helps them in their homesteading and significantly decreases government expenditure with respect to attaching them to the soil after they are transferred to settler status."
Tools are given on credit for 5 years with the condition that the settler pay a fifth of the price annually. At the Korsakov post a carpenter's ax costs 4 rubles, a ripping saw i 3 rubles, a shovel i ruble 80 kopecks, a rasp 44 kopecks, nails io kopecks per pound. A woodsman's ax is issued on credit at 3 rubles 50 kopecks only in the event that the settler did not take care of his carpenter's ax.
8 The homesteader and the co-owner live in one hut and sleep on one stove. Neither religion nor sex is a deterrent to co-owner- ship. I recall that the co-owner of settler Golybev in Rykovskoye was the Jew Lyubarsky. In the same settlement, settler Ivan Khavriyevich had a female cohomesteader, Marya Brodyaga.
I have already spoken of the povercy in which the local peasant inhabitants live, regardless of the many loans and assistance re- ceived from the government. Here is a scene depicting this beg- garly existence which came from the pen of an officiaclass="underline" "In the village of Lyutoga I entered the very poorest hovel. It was owned by settler Zerich, an inept tailor by trade, who has been in the process of settling himself for four years. The povercy and want are appalling. There is absolutely no furniture except for a de- crepit table and a tree stump which serves as a chair. Except for a tin tea kettle made from a kerosene can, there is no evidence of any dishes or kitchenware. Instead of a bed, there is a small pile of straw covered with a sheepskin coat and an extra shirt. He has none of the tools of his trade except for a few needles, a few gray threads, several buttons and a copper thimble which he also uses as a pipe for smoking tobacco. The tailor perforated a hole in it, and whenever he so desires, he inserts a thin mouthpiece made of a local reed. His total supply of tobacco could fill half the thimble" (Order No. 318, 1889).
Before 1888 those who received peasant rights were forbidden to leave Sakhalin. This prohibition destroyed all hope in a settler for a better life and instilled in him a hatred for Sakhalin. Since it was a repressive measure, it would only increase the number of escapes, crimes and suicides. Justice herself became the victim of its practicalicy, since the Sakhalin convicts were prohibited the same things which were permitted to Siberian convicts. This measure was evoked by the consideration that if the peasanrs should leave the island, Sakhalin would eventually become merely a place for penal servitude and not a colony. How could convicts living out their lives on Sakhalin make a second Australia out of the island? The vitalicy and growth of a colony does not derive from prohibitions or orders but from the presence of conditions which will guarantee a peaceful and secure life at least for their children and grandchildren if not for the convicts themselves.
I met only one man who expressed the desire to remain on Sakhalin for the rest of his life. He is an unfortunate man, a farmer from Chernigov, condemned for raping his own daughter. He does not like his homeland because he left a bad reputation. He never writes to his grown-up children, hoping they will forget him. He will not leave for the mainland because he is too old.
A small administrative district which generally includes only a few villages.—TRA^^NS.
^3 In answer to the question '"What guberniya do you come from?" I received replies from 5,791 persons. These were: Tam- bov 260, Samara 230, Chernigov 201, Kiev 201, Poltava 199, Voronezh 198, Donskoya Oblast 168, Saratov 153, Kursk 151, Perm 148, Nizhegorod 146, Penzen 142, Moscow 133, Tver 133, Kherson 131, Ekaterinoslav 125, Novgorod 122, Kharkov i 17, Orel i 1 5. Figures for the remaining guberniyas were less than one hundred. All the Caucasian guberniyas were included to a total of 2 1 3, or 3.6 percent. There is a larger percentage of Caucasians in prison than in the colony, which means that they are unable to endure their sentences with fortitude, and very few become settlers. The explanation is given by their frequent escapes and perhaps their high death rate. The guberniyas of the King- dom of Poland include a total of 4 55 convicts, or 8 percent. Finland and the Ostzeyskiye guberniyas include 167, or 2.8 per- cent. These figures give only an approximate idea of the population according to places of birth, but would anyone dare to draw the conclusion that Tambov guberniya is the most criminal and that the Ukrainians, of whom there are actually very many on Sakhalin, are more criminal than the Russians?