When criminal convicts were freed in Siberia after serving a given sentence at hard labor, they received an allotment of land and agricultural implements for purposes of sustenance, and after two years the government troubled no more about them. They became settlers in some province of Southern Siberia. With political exiles it was quite different. When they had finished a seven, ten, or twelve year sentence, they were not liberated but transferred to the tundras within the Arctic Circle. Fancy a young girl student exiled to a village numbering a hundred houses, with the government allowance of 8 to 10 shillings a month to live on. Occupations were closed to her, and there was no opportunity to learn a trade. She was forbidden to leave the town even for a few hours. The villagers were for the most part in fear of being suspected if seen to greet politicals in the street. “Without dress, without shoes, living in the nastiest huts, without any occupation, they [the exiles were mostly dying from consumption,” said the Golos of February 2, 1881. They lived in constant fear of starvation. And the Government allowance was withdrawn if it became known that an exile received any monetary assistance from family or friends. Those politicals condemned to hard labor in Siberia worked mostly in gold mines for three months out of twelve, during which period meat was added to their diet. Otherwise black bread was the main food of the diet. When held in prisons awaiting trial or convicted and awaiting transfer into exile, politicals did no work whatever. Their only occupation was reading. Common criminals had to work in prison as well as in Siberia. In the fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul,[1] Kropotkin was lodged in a cell big enough to shelter a big fortress gun (25 feet on the diagonal). The walls and floor were lined with felt to prevent communication with others. “The silence in these felt- covered cells is that of a grave,” wrote Kropotkin . . . . “Here I wrote my two volumes on The Glacial Period.” Here he also prepared maps and drawings. This privilege was only granted, to him, however, after a strong movement amongst influential circles compelled it from the Czar.[1a] The Geo- graphical Society for whom he was writing his thesis also made many pleas on his behalf. He was allowed to buy tobacco, writing paper and to have books—but no extra food. [1] In the Trubeskoi bastion, one building in the fortress. [1a] Set Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Kropotkin.