New route taken by exiles since opening of the Trans-Siberian railway—Increased numbers produced overcrowding in all prisons both in Europe and Asia—The “forwarding prisons” the cause of much distress—The Tiumen prison; cells, kitchen, hospital—Infectious diseases—Death-rate—Tomsk forwarding prison—Conditions worse than at Tiumen—The balagan or family “kamera”—Futile attempts to dispute incontrovertible evidence—“Étapes” or road prisons and “polu étapes” or half-way houses—Distance covered daily by the marching parties—The “telyegas” or country carts which carried the sick—Method of buying provisions from villagers en route—The “étape” of Achinsk—Infectious diseases in these prisons—The reports of Governor-General Anuchin—Sympathy of the Czar Alexander III. The old order changeth slowly, and the hideous memories of the black and baleful past will long survive. The pages which record the disgraceful facts may be torn out of Russian prison history but they can never be eradicated or forgotten. Let it be granted that reforms and improvements have been introduced, and that some of the most glaring evils have been removed, we may doubt whether in the present condition of the empire, still shaken to its very base by disaster and disaffection, the betterment goes below the surface or will be lasting. The governing authorities in these troublous times have but little leisure to discuss penology, and although long since aroused to a lively sense of the shortcomings of their prison system, they are slow to mend their ways. Changes and ameliorations promised still tarry by the way, and there is but little hope that the frightful conditions so long prevailing have even in part disappeared. The chief blot upon the method of transportation no longer exists, it is true. The wearisome, almost interminable march has been replaced by the long railway journey over the Trans-Siberian line, completed in 1897 and opened the following year for the conveyance of exiles. The convicts no longer spend a couple of years or more on a journey now performed in eight or ten days. Their sufferings are no longer protracted indefinitely, but for a brief space they are still locked up like cattle in dirty, ill-ventilated vans, and are still collected in the foul “forwarding prisons,” whence they pass on for distribution to Eastern Siberia, the convict colony of Saghalien, or the outer darkness near the North Pole. A few well-planned and commodious new prisons have been erected in recent years, for which credit must be given to the prison administration, but they have applied only a partial remedy to existing conditions.