As in Russia nothing with which the government is concerned can be commented on by the press without especial permission, it is difficult to ascertain correctly how far the system followed in Siberia works beneficially as regards the moral reformation of the criminals, and their relations to society in general. The accounts of travelers are very conflicting--some extolling the extreme leniency with which even the worst offenders are treated, as the _ne plus ultra_ of social policy, and dwelling with delight on its happy results; while others consider it disastrous in its consequences, and relate instances of the most atrocious crimes committed by the convicts, and of whole tracts of country in which life and property have been rendered insecure by their presence. The statistics of Siberia, however, prove the country to be improving; and all travelers agree as to the freedom from molestation which they have experienced while traversing its immeasurable steppes; and it is therefore but fair to conclude, that though the attempt at moral reformation may be unsuccessful in many instances, in general convict colonization has here borne good fruits. That great severity in the chastisement of new transgressions has been found necessary, is on the other side proved by the penal laws bearing exclusively on Siberia. According to these laws, drunkenness, fighting, idleness, theft of articles of small value, unallowed absence from the place of detention, are considered venial offenses, and are punished with from ten to forty lashes with the cat-o'-nine-tails; while desertion among the colonists is punished, the first time with simple flogging, the second and third time with the cat-o'-nine-tails. If the offense be persisted in after this, sentence is to be pronounced by the local tribunals, and often consists in temporary removement to some distant and thinly-populated district, or incorporation in one of the penal labor companies. Convicts condemned to hard labor who attempt to escape are punished with the knout, and are branded on the forehead, in case this mark of ignominy have not previously been inflicted on them. Repeated thefts, robberies, and other like offenses are punished in the same way as desertion; but in these cases the value of the object stolen is not so much taken into consideration as the motives by which the criminals are actuated, and the number of times the offense has been repeated. A fourth repetition by an exile of a crime previously punished renders him liable to forty lashes with the knout, and to being placed in the category of the convicts condemned to forced labor. Murder, highway robbery, and incendiarism are, if the offender be a simple exile, punished with from thirty-five to fifty lashes with the knout, in addition to branding on the forehead, and forced labor in irons for a period of not less than three years--the term beyond this being left to the judgment of the local tribunals.