At Saghalien there was no security to life and property in the towns and still less safety in the interior, which was ravaged and harassed by the vagrant convicts, continually moving to and fro. Murder was committed daringly and unblushingly on the smallest temptation, such as the possession of even a small sum of money. When Mr. Hawes was at Alexandrovsk, he met when on his way to church a couple of men just out of hospital who had evidently been drinking. One of them reeled a little in his walk and was manifestly drunk. Within a few hours this luckless creature lay, a corpse, in the market place. He had been murdered by his companion for the six or seven rubles he carried in his pocket. Three days later, a man living near the market place imprudently sat near the lamp at an open window, and was shot through it. Hawes describes the cemetery he visited on a hill to the north of the town; it was filled with wooden crosses, black, brown and green, clustering thickly, and much the same epitaph was inscribed on all, “Here lies —— murdered —— 18—.” No mention was made of the assassin; that was quite unnecessary. The victims were buried both singly and in groups of three, four or five. The theatre of the crime was usually the market place or bazaar near-by, where quarrels were frequent and weapons such as knives, daggers and revolvers were constantly employed. Murderous assaults and hand-to-hand fights were repeated almost daily, and the police seldom took notice of the disturbance. Men were often pointed out in the open road who had half a dozen or more murders to their credit. Mr. Hawes saw one hovering near his hut who had slain eight victims, and it seemed inexplicable that such a miscreant should be suffered to be still at liberty. His immunity was due to his prompt escape into the _taiga_ or wild, wooded interior. Convicts who did so might be captured some day, but were seldom identified or there was insufficient evidence to secure their conviction. The authorities, too, were generally callous when one villain murdered another, philosophically saying, “After all the brutal crowd has been well diminished by one.” Of course if an official was murdered, more serious steps were taken to bring the offender to justice. A Saghalien murderer was known to have committed the capital offence nineteen times, and still evaded punishment.