. Side-lights on Siberia; some account of the great Siberian railroad, the prisons and exile system; . dued give place in wilder chorus to the reckless motif— Cease, brother, yovingster,Thou surely art not a girl;Sing, sing, care will fly away. A provisional arrangement was to come into force in 1897,whereby the convicts would still be conveyed by boat fromTiumen, but only up the Irtish to Omsk, at which pointthey would join the railway.^ At Kainsk one got a glimpseof what this new departure will mean. The brick buildingthat is to serve as station had evidently not been longcompleted, and the
. Side-lights on Siberia; some account of the great Siberian railroad, the prisons and exile system; . dued give place in wilder chorus to the reckless motif— Cease, brother, yovingster,Thou surely art not a girl;Sing, sing, care will fly away. A provisional arrangement was to come into force in 1897,whereby the convicts would still be conveyed by boat fromTiumen, but only up the Irtish to Omsk, at which pointthey would join the railway.^ At Kainsk one got a glimpseof what this new departure will mean. The brick buildingthat is to serve as station had evidently not been longcompleted, and the platform was still in process of con-struction. In the lee of a log office crouched a group ofconvicts, surrounded by some fifteen guards. At a sign ^ I have since learned that this project was not accomplished, and tliatduring the summer of 1897 the transportation was effected in the ordinaryway. Only from the spring of 1898 onwards they will be conducted straightfrom Russia by the Trans-Siberian Railway to their tlestinations, and theclosing of the etapes has already commenced. -iK^ V / >^.. THE RAILWAY AND THE MARCH. 193 from the sergeant they rose to their feet, and commencedsingly to clamber up into the waggon—the last of a shorttrain—that stood on the side-line beside them. It is hardfor one who has not seen the circumstances of the marchto estimate the far-reaching benefit to humanity that theTrans-Siberian Railway will render in this respect. Forthose exiles whose destination is the silver mines of Nert-chinsk, the weary march will each year become more ofa vanishing quantity. Moreover I should not be surprisedif, when the railway is completed as far as the town ofNertchinsk, the need even for it in the capacity of convict-transporter will have entirely disappeared, for one gets theimpression that we are seeing the last phases of a systemthat is passing away.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectsiberia, bookyear1898
