When Mr. Hawes visited the island in 1902, he found a principal gaol at Alexandrovsk known as the “testing,” or probation prison, for the worst criminals, those with a sentence of twelve years and upward, whose fetters are not removed and who are confined in a quarter styled the “chained” prison. There is a second prison known as the “reformatory,” for those with lesser sentences, into which convicts from the testing prison, after passing a minimum of four years, may be promoted. These last-named prisoners are permitted to work in gangs beyond the walls, under escort, without very strict discipline, so that many leave their parties to work on their own account in various forms of depredation. The “ticket-of-leave” men, or free commands, were entered on the lists of the reformatory prison and included the vagrants, _brodyagi_, who were deported after recapture on the mainland. Immediate release from jail is the boon conceded to any convict, even the very worst, whose freeborn wife has elected to come out from Russia and join him. He becomes then an exile settler of one of the “peasant” class, so-called, whom it is hoped will assist colonisation. The same boon is conceded to female convicts. “Free” husbands, however, are not often eager to share their lot. According to Mr. Hawes, there were only six of these loyal spouses on the whole island. But the women convicts have the chance of being chosen to join in a convict marriage or temporary coupling of parties, which is not only permitted but strongly encouraged. The consequences of such unions are deplorable. The effect on the woman is most demoralising, and too often the offspring, when children are born, have inherited the criminal taint. The civil contract cannot be entered into without divorce in the case where a husband still exists in Russia, although many widows have simplified the matter by murdering their husbands before leaving home, often, indeed, the cause of their deportation. Figures quoted for one year, 1897, show that there were 2,836 murderers in durance upon the island, and a much larger number if ex-convicts were included, and of this total, 634 were women who had murdered their husbands. Clergymen on Saghalien refused to give a religious sanction to these civil contracts unless there had been a formal dissolution of the Russian marriage. The civil bond sat lightly on both parties; the women in particular elected to go their own way, and if interfered with or if they found their marriage ill-assorted or irksome, they at once transferred themselves to some other master. The results of this outrage upon the most sacred of human institutions must assuredly lead to its abolition; they are identically the same as reported by Mr. George Griffith to be the case in New Caledonia. He says: “I saw about seventy-six separate and distinct reasons for the abolition of convict marriages at the convict school. On every face and