Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/327

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
EXILES IN IRKUTSK.
321


EXILES LEAVING MOSCOW.

money and flour, just enough to support life, that are given to exiles who are restricted to villages and debarred from remunerative occupation."

"Did you personally meet many exiles while you were in Siberia?" Frank inquired.

"I saw a great many while I was travelling through the country," Mr. Hegeman answered, "and in some instances had conversations with them. At the hotel where I stopped in Irkutsk the clerk was an exile, and so was the tailor that made an overcoat for me. Clerks in stores and shops, and frequently the proprietors, were exiles; the two doctors that had the largest practice were 'unfortunates' from Poland, and so was the director of the museum of the Geographical Society of Eastern Siberia. Some of the isvoshchiks were exiles. On one occasion an isvoshchik repeated the

21