Most convicts exhibited similar personal traits. A few showed a gay, frivolous demeanour, which drew down on them the unmixed contempt of their fellows; the larger number were morose, envious, inordinately vain, presumptuous, susceptible and excessively ceremonious. Their first endeavour was to bear themselves with dignity; to submit to discipline and obey the rules, but with self-respect, so long as they were enforced fairly and reasonably. Established usage had great weight, almost as much as official regulations. Every new arrival was soon brought into line and found his level with the rest. A man at first reception might seek to show off and astonish his fellows by bold talk and loud threats, but it was all wasted breath; he soon yielded submission, willingly or unwillingly, unconsciously perhaps, to the predominant tone of the place. Class distinctions were not ignored in this Russian _ostrog_, but convicts of noble birth, of title even, and educated as gentlemen, had an especially hard time. In English prisons such persons receive a certain consideration from their fellows, are addressed civilly and treated with some respect. At Omsk they were cordially disliked and subjected to many annoyances. There were some half-dozen, like Dostoyevski, of noble rank, who had been degraded from their position and were looked down upon and despised by the other convicts, who would not admit them as members of their class. A gibe commonly heard was, “Ah, Monsieur’s carriage once drove people in the street; now Monsieur picks hemp.” Their comrades were aware of their peculiar sufferings and made sport of them. “It was above all when we were working together,” declares Dostoyevski, “that we had most to endure, for our strength was not equal to theirs and we were seldom of much use at labour. Nothing is more difficult than to gain the confidence of the common people; above all such people as these!” The unequal effect of the punishment was very marked in the _ostrog_. “A common man,” says our author, “sent to hard labour, finds himself in kindred society, perhaps even in a more interesting society than he has known. He loses his native place and his family, but his ordinary surroundings are much the same as before. A man of education, condemned by law to the same punishment as the common man, suffers incomparably more. He must stifle all his needs, all his habits; he must descend into a lower sphere, must breathe another air. He is like a fish thrown upon the sand. The punishment he undergoes, nominally equal for all criminals according to law, is ten times more painful and more severe for him than for the common man. This is an incontestable truth, even if one thinks only of the material habits that must be sacrificed.”