The convicts condemned to forced labor, and employed in the manufactories, are the most leniently dealt with of this class, their position being, indeed, such as to render the sentence a reward rather than a punishment. In the manufactories of Telma more than eight hundred convicts are employed, who receive in wages, according to the work executed by them, from six to fifty rubles per month, besides bread flour; and their wives, who dwell in the village, earn from two and a half to five rubles per month by spinning and weaving hemp. The convicts employed in manufactories, and receiving wages, are, however, generally such as have previously been under stricter discipline, and are in a state of transition toward the position of liberated colonists. In several towns of Siberia there are establishments for them during the first stage of their punishment. In these establishments, called _Remeslenui Dom_, or the House of Trades, the convicts are employed as joiners, turners, saddlers, wheelwrights, smiths, &c., and are housed, clothed, and fed at the public expense, but do not receive wages, their wives and children finding employment in other ways. All orders must be addressed to the officers intrusted with the superintendence of the establishments; but persons having work executed there are at liberty to enter the workshops, and to communicate directly with the different craftsmen, who are not chained, but are guarded by military. In winter, the hours of labor are eight, in summer, twelve. The proceeds of the labor of the convicts go to pay the expenses of the establishment, and the surplus is applied to charitable purposes, such as the building and maintenance of hospitals. The convict laborers in the mines of the Ural, as well as those of Nertchynsk, dwell together in large barrack-like buildings, the worst criminals among them being alone chained; but owing to the unhealthy nature of the mines, particularly those of Nertchynsk, their existence is a very miserable one. The usual term of compulsory labor in the mines is twenty years, at the expiration of which the convicts are generally established as colonists in the vicinity of the mines, and continue to labor in them, but as free laborers, receiving wages. In case there be at any time a scarcity of mining laborers, the authorities are at liberty to apply to this purpose exiles who have not been especially sentenced to this punishment; but in such cases the exiles are paid for their labor, and are not confined to the mines for more than one year, which counts, besides, for two years of exile. Upon the whole, great latitude is allowed the central and local authorities in Siberia with regard to the employment and allocation of the convicts and exiles, it being merely laid down as a general rule that agricultural settlements shall always be made in the least populous districts of the localities capable of cultivation. It seems also to be