Failure of the scheme to utilise Saghalien as a convict settlement—Testimony of an official on the terrible condition of the exiles—Gambling and drunkenness universal—Prevalence of immorality—The prisons hot beds of vice—No classification of the prisoners—Convicts refuse to settle on the island as colonists at the expiration of their sentence—Account of two assassinations at Alexandrovsk—Description of the cemetery there—Female murderers on the island—Sophie Bluffstein, called the “Golden Hand”—Her adventurous career of crime—Sent to Saghalien as a political prisoner—Carried on criminal operations when released—Recaptured and again confined—Finally released and settled on the island until her death—The merchant of Alexandrovsk and his unfaithful wife—The vagrants in Saghalien—Barratasvili—His capture and death—Horrible story of the fate which befell the convict road-makers—Politicals on Saghalien—Their terrible sufferings. The day will come when Russia, like the rest of the world, will learn that it cannot finally dispose of its worst elements by shooting them down on some distant dust heap. Siberia will act in its own defence as did Australia, and refuse to be forever the dumping ground for criminals. The prosperous development of that vast and richly endowed territory has been too long delayed and already a change is imminent. Enterprise has been stimulated by the construction of the great Trans-Siberian railway. As Siberia grows in wealth and importance it will surely resent and repudiate the exile system, whether enforced by the improved methods of railway travelling or facilitated by sea communications. The old idea of removal still obtains, although an effort has been made to avoid the horrors of the prolonged pilgrimage on land, by substituting the long sea voyage from Odessa, through the Suez canal and the southern seas to far Saghalien. Banishment to that convict colony, although half the island has passed to the victorious Japanese, will still survive, despite its manifest failure.