Under this union, life in common was admirably organised, with a division of labour and a regular roster of employment. Work was of two classes; for private purposes, and for the general good. The former included washing of clothes and mending, the latter cooking, cleaning, attending to the steam bath and the various domestic services. No pains were spared to insure cleanliness. All rooms occupied by the prisoners were scrupulously washed and kept tidy; the bed-boards and floors were regularly scrubbed with hot water; the beds were aired; tables and benches were washed in the yard; all sanitary appliances were thoroughly disinfected. Proper ventilation was insisted upon, and close attention was paid to hygienic conditions. All worked cheerfully, and illness only was allowed as an exemption. The cooking was done by groups of five each which served for a week at a time. A head cook, an assistant cook for invalids, and two helpers made up the group. This was hard work, fatiguing while it lasted, but a relief to the monotonous life. The kitchen became a sort of club-house, where men came to laugh and jest and play practical jokes, a pleasant change in their gruesome existence. The dietary was meagre and little varied on account of dearth of materials. Thin soup and black bread was the staple food, but the soup-meat was often served as a separate dish with great ingenuity, a favourite method being to mince it with groats. This dish was nicknamed “Every-one-likes-it,” and it was joyfully welcomed on the days it appeared on the bill of fare. Another favourite dish was the _pirog_, a sort of “resurrection pie,” containing scraps saved up during the week. Except on rare holidays, when roast meat and white bread were supplied out of the fund, the food was neither nutritious nor appetising. But many of the cooks were skilful,—worthy, as the prisoners declared, of “better houses.” The cook’s perquisite was the issue of a rather increased portion of food. Certain officials were appointed by the _artel_. A “bread issuer” cut up the loaves and served them out to the different rooms; it was his duty also to collect the scraps, even to the crumbs, and send them to the “free command,” where ex-prisoners in semi-liberation resided; and the pieces helped to feed the horses and two cows, the property of the union. There was a poultry man, too, who took charge of the fowls, which were raised and tended most carefully. Two bath-keepers were in charge of the steam bath, the one luxury in the prison, indulgence in which once a week afforded a short period of delightful ease and comfort. What the bath meant to the convicts in the Omsk _ostrog_ has already been described.