The _artel_, acting through its leaders, the “Ivans,” who helped the _starosta_ to his place and practically controlled him, claimed the right to enforce the strict observance of the agreements made between convicts, and especially in regard to “swops,” or the exchange of identities, with all the attributes and responsibilities attaching to each. In recent years, great pains have been taken to prevent this by such means as the obligation to carry photographs and personal description which are constantly compared with the individual. But the exchanges were long made with impunity, facilitated by the loose system prevailing. Every marching party consisted of two principal classes; the convicts sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour, and the _ssylny_, sentenced to exile only as forced colonists. The penalties are quite unequal, and many of those doomed to suffer the most severe would be glad to exchange positions with the colonists when any could be induced to accept the heavier burden. There were many such; it was only a question of price, and that was not generally high; often a ridiculously small compensation sufficed and the bargain was soon made. There are in every exile party a number of abject creatures, degraded gamblers, who have lost their clothing (government property) and mortgaged their food allowance for weeks ahead, and who will sell their souls for a few rubles and a bottle of vodka. Such a creature will listen greedily to the overtures of the more prosperous convict, who has won or saved money on the road, and who tempts with splendid offers: a warm overcoat, five rubles and a few glasses of drink as the price of his personality. The bribe is backed up by specious arguments. The new convict might console himself with the thought that he need not remain long at hard labour. When duly arrived at his destination in the mining settlements, or at some great prison, he had only to declare that he was not the man he pretended to be. He would confess, in fact, that he had fraudulently exchanged with another, whom he named but who could not be found. The first act of the sham exile would be to escape from the village in which he was interned and to get lost in the _taiga_. The false convict might be held for a time and subjected to a severe flogging and a term of imprisonment, after which he could count upon release as an ordinary exile.