The first large party consisted of one hundred and fifty political convicts and administrative exiles, including twenty members of the Jewish revolutionary band. The exiles were traveling in special cars and had been on the road continuously from March 24, five days after they first heard of the revolution. The cars were met by a vast crowd at the railroad-station, which cheered them tumultuously. The returning exiles returned the cheers, but they were in a deplorable physical condition--shaggy, uncouth, unwashed, and extremely emaciated. Many were crippled with rheumatism, two had lost hands and feet from frostbites, and one, who attempted flight a week before the revolution, had been shot in the leg when he was recaptured. He was lying in a prison-hospital when he learned that he was a free man. Five days after the triumph of the revolution 6,000 exiles entered Irkutsk, but the vast majority were unable to proceed west, owing to the lack of rolling-stock. These encamped about the town and along the railroad, and at least a month will be needed before they can be sent home. The crowds at Tyumen cheered the famous terrorist, Nicolai Anuikhin, who shot and killed the chief of the Petrograd-Warsaw Railway in 1906. His victim, General Fuchloff, was about to kidnap 400 railroad strikers and send them to Siberia. Anuikhin, who introduced himself as "a released jailbird," is a gigantic, broad-shouldered, elderly man, with a gray imperial and an excited manner of speech. He said: "After one year in European convict prisons I spent ten years in the Alexandrovsk prison, fifty miles from Irkutsk. This is the biggest convict jail in Russia and contained 12,000 ordinary criminals and about 500 political prisoners, mostly sentenced to life _katroga_, the severest form of Russian punishment short of death. "I spent the first five years in the so-called probation class, with hands and feet manacled and chained to a wheelbarrow which I had to take everywhere. In addition I was repeatedly flogged by order of the Governor. The Assistant Governor, during the absence of his chief, ordered daily floggings for his own satisfaction. "The occupants of the different dormitories communicated by means of tappings and other systems of signaling. Although we also had means of communication with the outside world, we knew nothing of the revolution until the morning of our release. "After our release we learned that the Assistant Governor, on getting the news of the revolution, declared that he would give a farewell flogging, 'in order to prepare my jailbirds for sweet liberty.'" Among the political prisoners from Tobolsk was Alexander Popoff. He was sentenced to death for an alleged plot against the Emperor, a charge which he declares was a fabrication by the police. Popoff, who is a highly intelligent artizan, was chained by the wrists and ankles for four years. In describing his release, he says: