The government allows each privileged exile three dollars a month, out of which he must rent a room, or sleeping-place of some description, pay for his food, clothing, and all other necessities. If the wife of a privileged exile accompanies her husband into exile, she also is granted six rubles, or three dollars, and one dollar and a half for each child. But at the present time eighty-five per cent. of the political exiles in western Siberia, are of the unprivileged class, and these the government allows one ruble and a half, or seventy-five cents, a month! It seems almost unthinkable that a government which aspires to greatness would turn adrift living men and expect them to live for years on an allowance of seventy-five cents a month. Sometimes exiles arrive unknown to the Red Cross Society, and then there happens to them what would happen to nearly all unprivileged exiles if the government’s dole were not supplemented--they starve. At this point a bright-faced, buoyant man of about thirty-five entered the room, and shook hands with us with great warmth. He soon told his story. He came from the town of Yaroslaff, on the Upper Volga. By trade he was a carpenter. Last spring the workmen of Yaroslaff decided to keep May Day (the European Labor Day) by what they called a “peaceful celebration”; they would not only refrain from work, they would remain indoors all day. On the eve of May Day the governor caused to be issued a proclamation warning all the inhabitants of the province that any one who celebrated Labor Day in any way whatsoever would be punished. The Yaroslaff work-men decided to take the chance. They remained in their respective homes all day, merely absenting themselves from work. The next morning every man who had thus “celebrated” was placed under arrest. The man whom I met here in Tyumen had been sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia for this offense. The man had brought with him his wife and five children--as “voluntary” exiles. During the first three days after their arrival in Tyumen they had no money, and somehow had failed to connect with the Red Cross committee, in consequence of which they literally starved. The man told me that he had not one piece of bread for his children, the youngest of whom cried constantly through hunger. For many years the government made a slightly better allowance to exiles for food than now. When Mr. George Kennan was in Tyumen, for example, the cost of food for each prisoner in the forwarding prison was 3½ cents a day, and for privileged prisoners 5 cents a day.[20]