It is estimated that the numbers of vagabonds at large in the summer months exceed thirty thousand. By far the larger part of these reappear at the convicts’ settlements when winter arrives. They are not recognised and have steadfastly refused to recollect their proper names, so one and all are provided with the same appellation of “Ivan Dontremember,”—a large family, and the name carries with it the penalty of five years’ hard labour. When deportation to Saghalien was later adopted on a large scale, the hope was entertained that the fever for escape would in a measure be cured by the difficulties and dangers of the savage conditions of that wild and distant land. The prison administration strongly recommended that the most incorrigible runaways should be interned on that convict settlement, where, hemmed in by sea and ice, they were cut off from the mainland of Asia and circumscribed in their bids for freedom. The Saghalien _brodyagi_, however, have been as active for evil and as irrepressible as in Siberia; they have worked in gangs, and rendered more desperate by the poverty of the country and the greater difficulties of subsistence, they have become more recklessly criminal. Fugitives who had broken prison joined forces and terrorised whole districts, attacking posts and settlements, committing the worst outrages, and long defying pursuit and recapture. More detailed accounts of the prevailing lawlessness in Saghalien belong to a later date. The multiplication of escapes by the most desperate characters in Siberia, and their almost inevitable recapture and reconviction, developed some detestable features in prison life. If anything were needed to emphasise the misusage of the comparatively innocent victims of Russian oppression, it will be found in the permitted predominance of the worst elements. The best were forever at the mercy of the worst; the hardened miscreants ruled the prisons; they might not be in the majority, but they depended upon the strength that came with combination of the truculent and masterful banded together. Where convicts gathered together in any number the first step was the organisation of the _artel_, or “union,” which governed the rest with irresistible despotism. In the days of marching by road the union was generally formed at the first halting place, when a _starosta_, or “chief,” was forthwith elected by the prisoners from among their own body, and nominally by the vote of the majority. But the decision lay really with the “Ivans,” the recidivists who had been in exile before; the old, experienced rogues and vagabonds, who imposed their will upon their comrades through their nominee. It was the ruthless rule of a secret oligarchy, wielding despotic and irresponsible power entirely in its own interests. The individual prisoner sacrificed his personal rights to gain the protection of the association which pretended to stand between him and the authorities. The union had funds acquired by means of a tax