# Siberia and the Exile System/Volume 2/Appendix F

Siberia and the Exile System Volume 1
APPENDIX F
CONDITION OF PRISONS
In this appendix will be found a few facts and statements concerning Siberian prisons, derived partly from Siberian newspapers and partly from official reports. It will be seen that they cover a series of years, both before and after my journey to Siberia, and that they relate to prisons in all parts of northern Asia from the mountains of the Urál to the mines of Kará. Most of the articles quoted from Siberian periodicals were read and approved by the local press censors before they were published, many of them had express official sanction, and none of them, so far as I know, has ever been disputed or questioned in the newspaper where it originated. For greater convenience of reference I have arranged the statements and descriptions, so far as possible, in alphabetical order under the names of the prisons to which they relate.
THE ÁCHINSK PRISON.
The Achinsk prison is a cloaca, where human beings perish like flies. Typhus fever, diphtheria, and other epidemic diseases prevail there constantly, and infect all who have the misfortune to get into that awful place. Not long ago a young girl—Miss Nikitína— died there of typhus fever, and in that prison Mr. L——ko contracted the typhus from which he died in Krasnoyársk.—Newspaper Sibir, No. 1. Irkútsk, Jan. 1, 1885.
In the Áchinsk prison matters are still worse. There one doctor has on his hands more than 300 sick, in a small cramped hospital, and with a very limited number of attendants. What can one unfortunate doctor do in such circumstances?
—Newspaper Vostúchnoe Obozrénie, No. 3. St. Petersburg, Jan. 22, 1887.
​The hospital of the Áchinsk prison consists of three barracks, one for men one for women, and one for families. The first thing that astonishes you, as you enter the hospital building, is the intolerable [oduráiushchaya — literally "maddening "] stench, which makes an unaccustomed person sick at the stomach. The wards are ventilated by means of holes pierced in the walls [and that in only a few of the rooms], but these holes are generally stuffed with rags by the patients themselves to prevent cold draughts. The water-closets are not only never disinfected, but never even ventilated; and the pools and masses of excrement on the floors show that they are rarely if ever cleaned. The sick have repeatedly begged the hospital administration to abate the stench, but without result. Insects of every possible kind are so abundant that they constitute the dominating population of the hospital, and the patients serve as their food. There are masses of filth under the beds, and the mattresses are so seldom changed that persons coming into the hospital for treatment frequently get at once two or three new diseases. The sick, for some reason, do not wear hospital garb, but go about in the common convict dress; and it is not unusual to see patients who have no shoes or slippers, and who are compelled to splash through the pools of the water-closet in their stocking-feet. The food is fairly satisfactory, although the meat is generally short in weight and the milk in measure. The number of attendants is so small that it is impossible for them properly to discharge their duties. One attendant, for example, has to look after sixty patients. The care of the sick is wholly inadequate, and after the evening "verification" [that is, in winter, after 4 P. M.], the doors are locked and the sick are left to care for themselves. No matter what may happen between that time and eight o'clock on the following morning, medical help cannot be had. The doctor's time is so occupied with private practice, and work in the city hospital, that he comes to the prison only once a day for an hour or two, while the hospital steward spends in the hospital only five or six hours a day. Such is our prison Bethesda.
— Áchinsk correspondence of the newspaper Sibírskaya Gazéta, No. 30. Tomsk, April 17, 1888.
With regard to the condition of the prison in Achinsk, our correspondent writes us as follows: "As soon as you enter the courtyard of the prison you notice the contaminated, miasmatic air; but the principal source of the contamination is the water-closet in the small corridor at the entrance to the prison building. Dante himself would have thrown down his pen if he had been required to describe the damp, cold, dilapidated cells of this prison. At night myriads of bedbugs torture every prisoner
1 When the governor-general passed through Áchinsk, the hospital administration had the wards thoroughly fumigated. [Editorial note.] ​into a condition not far removed from frenzy. The prison sometimes has 600 inmates, and to its filth and disorder are attributable the typhus fever, diphtheria, and other diseases that spread from it, as from a pit of contagion, to the population of the city."
It is commonly said that European Russia has no prisons for criminals, and that it is necessary, therefore, to send the latter to Siberia; but the pictures drawn by our correspondents show what is the condition of the Siberian prisons to which these criminals are sent, and into which there are sometimes crammed more than 2000 exiles. Siberian prisons contaminate not only the Siberian air, but the morals of the Siberian people.
— Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 22, p. 4. St. Petersburg, June 2, 1883.
Typhus fever constituted 16.6 per cent. of all the sickness in the Áchinsk prison in 1886, and 10.8 per cent. in 1888.
— Rep. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for 1886 and 1888, pp. 221 and 292.
If you once glance into the Áchinsk prison you will never forget it. I have seen many prisons and étapes, but not one worse than this. As you look at the prisoners in these cloacæ, you are simply astonished at the capacity of the human organism for endurance. When I said to the warden, "Why don't you try to clean your prison — at least a little?" he replied, "Gálkine Wrásskoy [the chief of the Russian prison administration] saw it all just as it is. The only way to make this prison endurable is to burn it down and build another — and where are you going to get the money?" There was nothing to be said after that.
— "Prisons and Etapes" by I. P. Belokónski. Orël, 1887.
THE BALAGÁNSK PRISON.
The Balagánsk prison is one of the oldest buildings in the city, and long ago fell into decay. Official correspondence has been in progress for many years with regard to the erection of a new prison, but it was not until recently that the sum of 19,000 rúbles was appropriated for the purpose, and the work of construction will not begin until spring. It is hard to understand how living human beings can continue to exist in the present prison ruins. There is no separate hospital connected with the prison, nor even an independent prisoners' kitchen; but in a small wing are the quarters of the warden, and there a room has been set apart for a hospital, and there, in the warden's kitchen, the prisoners do their cooking. You will find in the hospital neither dishes, nor utensils, nor linen in sufficient quantities, nor medicines. The food is scanty and bad. Meat is hardly given to the prisoners at all, and the bread is of such quality that, to adopt the words of a director of the prison committee ​who recently visited the prison, "it is doubtful whether pigs would eat it."
— Balagánsk correspondence of newspaper Sibírskaya Gazéta, No. 42, pp. 1119-1120. Tomsk, Oct. 20, 1885.
Scurvy constituted 28.4 per cent. of all the sickness in the Balágansk prison in 1888.
— Rep. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for 1888, p. 293.
THE BARNAÜL PRISON.
All sorts of disorders and irregularities are reported in the Barnaül prison, including drunkenness, fraud, embezzlement, counterfeiting [the tools and materials for which were furnished to the prisoners by the police], and murder.
— Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 12, p. 9. St. Petersburg, June 17, 1882.
Scurvy constituted 14.5 per cent. of all the sickness in the Barnaül prison in 1886.
— Rep. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for 1886, p. 223.
THE BIRUSÍNSKI ÉTAPE.
Typhus fever constituted 15.2 per cent. of all the sickness in the Birusínski étape in 1886, 17.5 per cent. in 1887, and 43 per cent. in 1888.
— Rep. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 222, 316, and 293.
THE CHEREMKHÓFSKI PRISON.
The condition of the Cheremkhófski prison is described to us by an eye-witness as something terrible. In four small cells [which do not contain, all together, more than 1700 cubic feet of air] there are packed thirty prisoners, including five or six women — one of them decrepit — and a baby. The cells are foul and stinking; the floors, in many places, have rotted and given way; and the sleeping-platforms are dirty and broken. Fleas and bedbugs are there in myriads, and, to use the expression of one of the prisoners, "they just regularly drink blood." No clothing is furnished, and some of the prisoners have nothing to wear but the shirts in which they were arrested. In short, it is impossible to describe all that one can see. "This is a grave and not a prison," said one young ​prisoner, and he characterized it with perfect justice. It is said that the other district and village prisons are in a similar condition.
—Newspaper Sibír, No. 45, p. 10. Irkútsk, Nov. 3, 1885.
THE IRKÚTSK PRISONS.
The inmates of the Irkútsk prison, castle have a very hard life—principally on account of the extremely limited space in the cells—but the people who deserve the most sympathy and pity are the exiles. In winter they accumulate in the forwarding prison in such numbers that very many of them have to sleep under the vári, on the cold, damp floor, and suffer incredible privations. Their unfortunate situation is made worse by the fact that they are not supplied with clothing, but have to wear such rags as they possess of their own. Many of them do not know what it is to have a change of under-clothing, and, generally speaking, they are in a state that would justify them in accusing Diogenes himself of living in luxury.
—Newspaper Sibír, No. 1, p. 3. Irkútsk, Jan. 1, 1884.
The Irkútsk forwarding prison was overcrowded to the extent of more than twice its normal capacity in 1887.—"The Sanitary Condition of Prisons," Report of the Medical Department for 1887. Ministry of the Interior, St. Petersburg, 1889.
The following are the official statistics of sickness and mortality in all the "prisons of general type" in the province of Irkutsk for the years 1886, 1887, and 1888:
| | 1886. | 1887. | 1888. |
| Average daily number of prisoners | 1335 | 1311 | 1280 |
| Average daily number in hospital | 212 | 192 | 160 |
| Sick-rate—per cent. | 15.8 | 14.6 | 12.5 |
| Total number of deaths | 56. | 84. | 90. |
| Death-rate—per cent. | 4.2 | 6.4 | 7. |
—Rep's, of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 10, 9, and 9.
The sick-rate in Belgian prisons is 2.7 per cent., and the death-rate 1.7 per cent.—Rep. of Lond. Meeting of Internatl. Pris. Cong., p. 78.
THE IRKÚTSK CITY PRISON.
The Irkútsk prison is a large brick building, two stories in height, with its front facade just opposite the long bridge over the brook Ushakófka. As you cross the bridge the building has quite a beautiful appearance, and the idea that it is a prison does not at first enter your head. But it ​is not beautiful within. You enter the long vaulted gateway, and notice at once a heavy odor; but it is not very bad, as there is plenty of air. From this gateway there are two entrances; one, on the right, leading to the corps-de-garde, and the other, on the left, to the chapel and the hospital. From the latter comes the stench. Beyond these entrances there are more iron gates, and on the other side of them is the court. The court- yard is clean, but the odor in the cells is murderous. ... On the left extends a low building with twelve or thirteen windows. In it are the secret kámeras where they keep particularly important criminals. Here it is comparatively clean and neat — better than in any other part of the prison, not excepting the so-called "office of the warden." The bath- house is too small for such a prison, where the number of prisoners some- times reaches 2000, and the common cells and the hospital are incredibly dirty and stinking.
— " Afar," by M. I. Orfanof , p. 216.
In the Irkútsk city prison, typhus fever constituted 11.8 per cent. of all the sickness in 1888.
— Rep. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for 1888, p. 292.
THE ISHÍM PRISON.
The Ishím correspondent of the newspaper Sibír, after referring to the murder of a prison inspector there by a prisoner, says: "It has long ceased to be news that the prisons in Siberia are hot-beds not only of moral but of physical contagion. And it is not surprising that they should be such. Not long ago I happened to meet, in a temperature of forty degrees below zero [Reaum.], a whole party of exiles clothed merely in khaláts, without warm overcoats or felt boots. Among them were many young children — also thus unprotected. In the rooms of the police station, to which the prisoners were taken, the coughing of the emaciated little ones was incessant. The consequences soon became apparent. Throat diseases began to prevail in the city among children, and typhus fever among adults. It is said that in one exile party that recently arrived here there were thirty typhus patients. The condition of the local prison, packed as it is with prisoners [there were recently 380 instead of 250 — the number for which it was designed], is not such as to lessen the severity of the epidemic. The city physician, Dr. V. S. Volashkévich, recently took there the infection of typhus, and died after a short illness.
— Newspaper Sibír, No. 11, p. 10. Irkútsk, March 10, 1885.
The sick-rate in the Ishím prison in 1884 was 39.7 per cent. [computed upon the whole number of prisoners]. It has not since been reported.
— Rep. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for 1884, p. 217. ​THE ISHÍM ÉTAPE.
Typhus fever constituted 55.2 per cent. of all the sickness in the Ishím étape in 1886, 50 per cent. in 1887, and 16.6 per cent. in 1888.
— Rep's of CM. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 222, 317, and 292.
THE KARÁ PRISONS.
Complaints come to us from Kara of the rough and inhuman treatment of convicts by the Cossacks of the prison guard. "Not long ago," writes one correspondent, "I myself saw a soldier knock a convict down without provocation, and then trample upon and kick him." Is not this barbarous treatment of convicts the reason for the constantly recurring disorders at Kará?
— Newspaper Sibír, No. 26, p. 5. Irkútsk, June 23, 1885.
We learn from Kará that, as a result of the recently discovered abuses there, almost all of the old officials have been discharged and new ones put in their places. How much better the latter will be than the former, time will show.
— Newspaper Sibír, No. 26, p. 5, Irkútsk, June 23, 1885.
Scurvy constituted 15 per cent. of all the sickness in the Lower Kará prisons in 1884.
— Rep. of the Chf. Pris. Adm. for 1884, p. 222.
THE KÍRINSK PRISON.
The Kírinsk prison is a wooden building, surrounded by a stockade, and is everywhere supported, inside and outside, by log props, without which it would long ago have fallen down from sheer decay. At the time of my visit to the prison one of the prisoners thrust his finger out of sight into the rotten wood of one of the logs, in order to show us how old and decayed the walls were. This year the ceiling fell in one of the cells and buried the prisoner who occupied it; but he was taken out alive. The building is very cold, and can hardly be warmed on account of its old and decayed condition. ... At the time of my visit it contained eighty-six prisoners, although it was built to hold not more than fifty at the utmost. ... The warden complained that since September, 1882, the authorities in Irkútsk had sent him no clothing of any kind for the prisoners, so that the latter could not leave their cells to work, nor even go out of doors to take a walk. ... One of the prisoners — a woman named Dolgopólova — complained to me that she had lain three years in this prison, waiting for her case to be tried by the Yakútsk circuit court. The male prisoners complained most of overcrowding. Many of them had to sleep not only on the floor, but under the nári. ... There is no hospital in the prison, and sick prisoners are sent to the Kírinsk city ​hospital, which, in point of incredible foulness and stench, is not paralleled by any similar institution, even in the most northerly and most remote towns of Siberia. The water-closet, evidently, is never cleaned, and liquids from it have run into the unwarmed corridor through which patients have to come to the closet, and have there frozen into a stratum of foul ice. Most of the sick lie on the floors, for want of cots, and lie so closely together that there is barely room to enter the kámeras. They all complained — and those lying on the floor complained with tears and lamentation — of the terrible cold in the kámeras, from which they were freezing without any means of covering themselves or getting warm. The temperature was really such as to necessitate a fur coat and cap. In one small separate cell lay two syphilitic patients — a man and a woman together, as there was no ward for women suffering from that disease — and on a pile of rags under a table in one corner of that same cell lay, cowering and getting behind each other, like puppies or kittens, two little children under three years of age belonging to the woman. The isprávnik explained that he had tried to make some other disposition of the children, in order to save them from infection; but that none of the inhabitants of the town would take them.
Exile parties, upon their arrival in Kírinsk, stop in this prison and are put into the corridor, since there is no forwarding prison here, and all the cells are already full of prisoners awaiting trial or undergoing punishment. When I visited the prison on the 17th of February, it contained an exile party numbering 120 which had just arrived from Irkútsk. Among these exiles were seven dangerously sick with typhus, and three more or less frozen. As there was no room for them in the hospital, they were laid on the floor of the corridor, and on the benches or shelves of a little store-room. On the march from Irkútsk, one exile had frozen to death. According to the statement of the warden, about one-tenth of all the exiles that come from Irkútsk arrive in Kírinsk without proper winter clothing, having sold their khaláts and shúbas, either for intoxicating liquor or for food. Some justify themselves for so doing by saying that they receive only fourteen kopéks a day for their subsistence, that black rye bread sometimes costs there nine or ten kopéks a pound, and that they are forced to sell their outer garments in order to get enough to eat.
— "The Prisons of the Lena Region," by Vladimir Ptítsin. In magazine Séiverni Véstnik, St. Petersburg, December, 1889.
THE KRASNOYÁRSK PRISON.
Every year, at the time of the autumnal ice-run in the Yeniséi River, the forwarding prison and the ostróg become overcrowded with prisoners. Last fall they contained 2000 persons, although intended for only 600. One can imagine what takes place in prisons thus overcrowded — the ​terrible suffocation, the filth, the dampness, etc. The prisoners have no laundry, and therefore they either wash their underclothing in their cells, or wear it for three or four weeks without washing. In the water-closets it is actually necessary to fight for a place, since for every such place there are a hundred or more prisoners. In view of these facts it is not surprising that the prison hospital now contains 200 patients sick with typhus in one form or another, and that twenty or thirty more are added daily to its lists. Even the prison attendants take the disease, and two overseers have already died of it. It is a matter for surprise that the prison authorities, with more than 300 sick on their hands, content themselves with the two prison doctors, instead of calling in outside physicians as they have done in previous years. However, in Áchinsk the condition of things is still worse. There they have only one prison doctor.
—Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 3, p. 6. St. Petersburg, Jan. 22, 1887.
Scurvy constituted 16.5 per cent. of all the sickness in the Krasnoyársk prison in 1886, 10.8 per cent. in 1887, and 11.6 per cent. in 1888. Typhus fever constituted 12.2 per cent. in the same prison in 1888.
—Rep's of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 222, 292, 293, and 317.
THE NÉRCHINSK PRISON.
The year 1884 has left Nérchinsk quite an inheritance of undesirable things, and among them contagious disease. Typhus fever, which first made its appearance in November, is now widely prevalent. The nursery of the contagion is that same old prison, famous for its filth, rottenness, and suffocating air. Four men died of typhus in it at the close of the year, and the overcrowding was such as to compel the authorities to remove all the women into another building hired for the purpose. From the prison and the prison hospital the disease was earned by the soldiers of the guard to the local command, where, out of twenty-five men sick, ten have typhus fever. The warden of the prison and the hospital steward are also down with the disease. General Barabásh, governor of the Trans-Baikál, inspected the prison on the 30th of December as he passed through here on his way to the Amúr, and was astounded by its hygienic condition.
—Newspaper Sibírskaya Gazéta, No. 7, p. 169. Tomsk, February 17, 1885.
Scurvy constituted 23.6 per cent. of all the sickness in the Nérchinsk prison in 1886. —Rep. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for 1886, p. 223. ​Mr. Gálkine Wrásskoy, chief of the Russian prison administration, finds the prisons at the Nérchinsk mines to be in bad condition, and the medical attendance deficient.
—Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 26, p. 2. St. Petersburg, September 23, 1882.
THE PERM FORWARDING PRISON.
The following are the official statistics of sickness and mortality in the Perm forwarding prison for the years 1886, 1887, and 1888.
| | 1886. | 1887. | 1888. |
| Average daily number of prisoners | 345 | 280 | 306 |
| Average daily number in hospital | 59 | 37 | 47 |
| Sick-rate—per cent. | 17.1 | 13.2 | 15.3 |
| Total number of deaths | 84 | 34 | 54 |
| Death-rate—per cent | 24.3 | 12.1 | 17.6 |
| —Rep's of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 53, 53, and 55. ||||
The sick-rate in Danish prisons ranges from 2.11 to 2.13 per cent., and the death-rate from 1.75 to 1.79 per cent.
—Rep. of Internatl. Pris. Cong., London meeting, p. 78.
THE SHERAGÚLSKI ÉTAPE.
Typhus fever constituted 35.7 per cent. of all the sickness in the Sheragúlski étape in 1886, 23.4 per cent. in 1887, and 39.1 per cent. in 1888.
—Rep. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 222, 317, and 293.
The étapes, with a few exceptions, are in an unsatisfactory condition, and some of them are in ruins. In the Sheragúlski étape, which has only two kámeras with thirty-six cubic fathoms of air space, there are crowded as many as fifty sick prisoners, of all ages and both sexes. They lie on the sleeping-platforms or under them as it may happen, and the stench in the kámeras is such that it can be borne with difficulty, even for a few moments. The grievously sick, for want of attendance, wallow on the floor in the midst of filth and evacuations from the bowels, and their clothes rot on their bodies. Still worse, according to the reports of the physicians, is the condition of the women that are compelled to give birth to children under the eyes of the male prisoners. The situation of the children themselves is also terrible.
—Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 26, p. 1. St. Petersburg, September 23, 1882.
THE TIRÉTSKI ÉTAPE.
Typhus fever constituted 26.5 per cent. of all the sickness in the Tirétski étape in 1886, 19 per cent. in 1887, and 32.9 per cent. in 1888.
—Reps. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 223, 316, and 293.
THE TOBÓLSK PRISONS.
The following are the official statistics of sickness and mortality in all the "prisons of general type" in the province of Tobólsk for the years 1886, 1887, and 1888:
| | 1886. | 1887. | 1888. |
| Average daily number of prisoners | 2178 | 2206 | 2273 |
| Average daily number in hospital | 264 | 215 | 212 |
| Sick-rate—per cent. | 12.1 | 9.7 | 9.3 |
| Total number of deaths | 227 | 265 | 246 |
| Death-rate—per cent. | 10.4 | 12. | 10.8 |
| —Reps of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 23, 21, and 21. ||||
The sick-rate in French prisons is from 4 to 5 per cent., and the death-rate from 3.6 to 3.8 per cent.
—Rep. of Internat'l Pris. Cong., London meeting, p. 79.
THE TOMSK PRISONS.
The following are the official statistics of sickness and mortality in all of the "prisons of general type" [not including the forwarding prison] in the province of Tomsk for the years 1886, 1887, and 1888:
| | 1886. | 1887. | 1888. |
| Average daily number of prisoners | 1133 | 1122 | 1208 |
| Average daily number in hospital | 92 | 90 | 104 |
| Sick-rate—per cent. | 8.1 | 8. | 8.6 |
| Total number of deaths | 42 | 48 | 52 |
| Death-rate—per cent. | 3.7 | 4.2 | 4.3 |
| —Reps of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 22, 22, and 21. ||||
The sick-rate in Swedish prisons is from 4 to 4.10 per cent., and the death-rate from 2 to 3 per cent.
THE TOMSK FORWARDING PRISON.
The following are the official statistics of sickness and mortality in the Tomsk forwarding prison for the years 1886, 1887, and 1888:
| | 1886. | 1887. | 1888. |
| Average daily number of prisoners | 1418 | 1491 | 1734 |
| Average daily number in hospital | 172 | 211 | 206 |
| Sick-rate—per cent. | 12.1 | 14.1 | 11.9 |
| Total number of deaths | 329 | 314 | 228 |
| Death-rate—per cent. | 23.2 | 21. | 13.1 |
| —Reps of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 53, 53, and 55. ||||
The death-rate among leased convicts in the Mississippi convict camps, between 1881 and 1885, ranged from 8.48 to 15.61 per cent. This is hardly more than half the death-rate of the Tomsk forwarding prison, and yet the Memphis Commercial says even such figures "tell the story of ill-usage, inhumanity, and brutal treatment."
—Memphis Daily Commercial, p. 1. Memphis, Tenn., July 27, 1890.
Typhus fever constituted 56.4 per cent. of all the sickness in the Tomsk forwarding prison in 1886, 62.6 per cent. in 1887, and 23.8 per cent. in 1888.
—Reps. of Chf. Pris. Dept. for years indicated, pp. 222, 317, and 293.
THE VÉRKHNI ÚDINSK PRISON.
Mr. M. I. Orfánof, a well-known Russian officer, who inspected the Vérkhni Údinsk prison at intervals for a number of years previous to our visit, has described it as follows:
The first prison in the Trans-Baikál is that of Vérkhni Údinsk. It stands on the outskirts of the town, on the steep high bank of the Selengá River. Over the edge of this bank, distant only five or six fathoms from the prison, are thrown all the prison filth and refuse, so that the first thing that you notice as you approach it, at any time except in winter, is an intolerable stench. The prison itself is an extremely old two-story log building intended to accommodate 140 prisoners. During my stay in Siberia I had occasion to visit it frequently. I never saw it when it held less than 500, and at times there were packed into it more than 800. I remember very well a visit that I once made to it with the governor of the Trans-Baikál. He arrived in winter and went to the prison early in the morning so that the outer door of the corridor was opened [for the ​first time that day] in his presence. The stench that met him was so great that, in spite of his desire to conceal from the prisoners his recognition of the fact that their accommodations were worse than those provided for dogs, he could not at once enter the building. He ordered the opposite door to be thrown open, and did not himself enter until a strong wind had been blowing for some time through the prison. The first thing that he saw, in one corner of the corridor, was an overflowing parásha [excrement bucket] and through the ceiling was dripping filth from a similar parásha in the story above. In that corner of the corridor he found six men lying on the floor asleep. He was simply astounded. "How can people sleep," he exclaimed, "on this wet, foul floor, and under such insupportable conditions?" He shouted indignantly at the warden and other prison authorities, but he could change nothing.
—"Afar," by M. I. Orfánof, pp. 220-222. Moscow, 1883.
Scurvy constituted 13.7 per cent. of all the sickness in the Vérkhni Údinsk prison in 1888.
—Rep. of Chf . Pris. Dept. for 1888, p. 293.
THE YENISÉISK PRISONS.
The following are the official statistics of sickness and mortality in all the prisons "of general type" in the province of Yeniséisk for the years 1886, 1887, and 1888.
| | 1886. | 1887. | 1888. |
| Average daily number of prisoners | 1715 | 1877 | 2117 |
| Average daily number in hospital | 427 | 449 | 445 |
| Sick-rate—per cent. | 24.9 | 23.9 | 21 |
| Total number of deaths | 247 | 231 | 205 |
| Death-rate—per cent. | 14.4 | 12.3 | 9.6 |
| —Reps of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 9, 9, and 9. ||||
Death-rate in railroad convict camps in North Carolina in 1879 and 1880 11.5 per cent.; in Texas convict camps 4.7 to 5.4 per cent.
—"The Convict Lease System in the Southern States," by George W. Cable, Century Magazine, vol. xxvii, p. 582.
PRISONS IN GENERAL.
A correspondent of the Nóvoe Vrémya reports that, notwithstanding the recent journey through Siberia of the chief of the prison administration, Mr. Gálkine Wrásskoy, the unsatisfactory condition of the prisons and of the exiles remains unchanged. The whole prison question, the ​correspondent adds, resolves itself into a question of money. If money be forthcoming, prisons will be forthcoming.
— Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 16, p. 8. St. Petersburg, July 15, 1882.
The following incident has been related to us as characteristic of our Siberian methods. A young man [well known in St. Petersburg] of incorruptible honesty, who had just been graduated from the university, came to a certain East-Siberian town to act as district attorney. Soon after his arrival he happened to be called upon to take the place of the procureur, and, in pursuance of his duty, visited the prison. He noticed there various disorders which were of such a nature as to render the police-master and the prison warden liable to criminal prosecution, and upon these disorders he made a report. It was read before the prison committee and made a very unpleasant impression. The chairman even said that the author of such a report had best look for a place in some other province. The report had no influence upon the fortunes of the prisoners, or of the police, but it had important consequences for the author, who was at once accused by the police of "political untrustworthiness." "What an excellent way," our correspondent adds, "to get rid of zealous young men who insist upon an observance of the laws!"
— Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 37, p. 6. St. Petersburg, December 19, 1882.
— Newspaper Éólos. St. Petersburg, December 10, 1882.
— Newspaper Sibír, No. 5. Irkútsk, January 30, 1883.
Not long ago the newspapers published a statement with regard to the unsatisfactory condition of the East-Siberian prisons, and the disorders said to have been discovered therein. We are now assured that, up to the present time, no particular disorders have been discovered. We accept this assurance willingly, but we cannot forget the official reports that we have seen of the provincial governors describing the extremely lamentable condition of the prisons.
— Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 8, p. 7. St. Petersburg, May 20, 1882.
A few days ago the Journal de St. Petersbourg printed a notice of the journey through Siberia of Privy-councilor Gálkine Wrásskoy, chief of the prison administration. ... We have received from a perfectly trustworthy source the following information with regard to the results of his observations. ... He inspected seven provincial, territorial, and district prisons, the convict prisons of Tobólsk and Alexándrofsk, the forwarding prisons of Tiumén, Tomsk, and Krasnoyársk, and seventy étapes and polu-étapes. We understand that they did not make upon him ​a very satisfactory impression. In point of construction and maintenance the only prisons found to be tolerable were the provincial prisons of Irkútsk and Krasnoyársk, and the district prisons of Omsk and Kansk. The prisons of Tobólsk and Tomsk, it is said, were in an extremely neglected condition so far as repairs were concerned, and the latter furnished an illustration, in all respects, of the complete indifference of the provincial authorities. Money for the rebuilding of a number of district prisons in the province of Tomsk — in Marínsk, Káinsk, Barnaül, and Bíisk — was asked for and granted as long ago as 1874, but the actual work of reconstruction has not yet [in 1882] begun in a single one of those towns, and the contractors for the Marínsk and Káinsk prisons are insolvent. The Siberian forwarding prisons are all overcrowded, and those in Tiumén and Tomsk are filled with sick [typhus patients and others] who, for want of hospital accommodations, are left in the same kámeras with the prisoners that are well.
— "The Journey of Privy-councilor Gálkine Wrásskoy through Siberia." Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 26, p. 1. St. Petersburg, September 23, 1882.
Report of Mr. Gálkine Wrásskoy, chief of the prison administration, upon the condition of Russian prisons in 1881.
En l'absence de chiffres précis pour l'ensemble des prisons à l'époque dont nous parlons, on peut citer certaines données caracteristiques se rapportant a la fin de l'année 1881, sans oublier que ces données ont été recueil- lies après qu'avaient déjà été prises certaines niesures pour l'évacua- tion des lieux de detention, et par conséquent qu'elles répondent à une situation déjà améliorée par rapport à celle des années précédentes. Il en ressort que pour 76,090 places destinées aux détenus il y avait 94,796 de ceux-ci; autrement dit, l'encombrement des prisons s'exprimait par une proportion de 19 per cent. par rapport au chiffre total des prisonniers, et par une proportion de plus que 24 per cent par rapport à la quantité ef- fective des emplacements dans les prisons. Ces chiffres représentent une moyenne pour l'ensemble des lieux de detention; si on entre dans le dé- tail, on constate que, dans 15 gouvernements, pour une place réservée aux détenus, on trouvait de 1.5 à 2 de ces derniers; dans 9 gouvernements, on en trouvait plus de 2, soit jusqu'à 2.7; dans un gouvernement, celui de Piotrokow, on en trouvait 5.2. ... Les rapports des autorités locales et les comptes-rendus des agents du ministère chargés d'inspecter les établissements de détention, représentent l'état des prisons sous un jour très peu favorable. Indépendamment du fait que certaines prisons avaient été établies dans des maisons particulières louées à cet effet, lesquelles ​étaient mal adaptées et quelques-unes tout à fait impropres à cet usage, ou bien que d'autres étaient situées dans édifices appartenant à l'Etat mais aménagés pour des services tout différents – celles mêmes des pris- ons qui étaient construites spécialement, comme telles se faisaient remar- quer, dans la majorité des cas, par leur état de vétusté, l'humidité qui y régnait, l'insuffisance de l'air et de la lumiére, le peu de commodité des arrangements intérieurs, et l'état affreux dans lequel étaient entretenus les lieux d'aisance. Certains édifices, à la lettre, offraient l'aspect de ruins; d'autres n'avaient pas d'enceinte extérieure manquaient de cuis- ines, de fours à pain, de bains, de bouanderies, de séchoirs, corps-de- garde caves et hangars. L'absence de locaux pour les ateliers etait un phénoméne presque général. Là même où autrefois avaient existé des ateliers, par exemple les ateliers de prisons des provinces de la Vistule; il fallait les fermer et les transformer en locaux d'habitation. Beaucoup de prisons manquaient de quartiers de femmes et de logements pour le per- sonnel pénitentiaire.
— Administration Générale des Prisons, Apercu de son Activité pendant la Periode Décennale, 1879 - 1889, pp. 6-8. St. Pétersbourg, 1890.
In a review of the report from which the above extract has been made,the Russian Gazette of Moscow says: "Upon reviewing the operations of the chief prison administration for the past ten years, we must recognize the fact that, with unquestionably good intentions, it has not succeeded, up to the present time, in removing a single one of the crying evils of the exile system."
— Russian Gazette, No. 234, p. 1. Moscow, July 25, 1889.
Statement of ex-Senator Grot, formerly president of the Russian prison council, with regard to the condition of Russian prisons.
... The whole penitentiary question in Russia is in a state of transition and reform. It would be very difficult to furnish extended details of the actual condition of the prisons, especially as the old administration, in expectation of a reform whose commencement dates only from the year 1860, neither could nor would, in these latter years, put in operation any radical measures. All that I can say is that the state of our prisons is very bad. We have neither good prison structures, nor employés specially prepared for the prison service. The labor is imperfectly organized, and the greater part of the prisoners have nothing to do. Even the youths are not everywhere separated from the adult prisoners. It must be said, however, that in these later times the penitentiary question has great interest for the Russian public, and books begin to issue from the press relating to it.
— Letter to Mr. E.C. Wines, quoted in the second annual report of the U.S. Commissioner of Labor, p. 455, Washington, 1887.
​In the annual report of the medical department of the Ministry of the Interior for 1884, the prisons and prison hospitals of Tomsk, Yeniséisk, and Irkútsk are referred to as follows:
From the reports of the medical administrations it is evident that the sanitary condition of many prisons, both in the provinces and in the territories, is extremely unsatisfactory. The majority of them are altogether too small for the number of prisoners usually contained in them. Many of them lack proper ventilation, have badly constructed retirades, or are situated on low, damp ground. The prisons in which the absence of favorable hygienic conditions is most marked are those situated in the provinces of ... Yeniséisk, Irkútsk, and Tomsk, and in the territory of the Trans-Baikál. Many prison hospitals are not provided with proper hospital supplies or appliances,and are so small that they cannot accommodate all of the sick. In many prisons, moreover, there is no special medical staff.
— Rep. of Med. Dept. for 1884, Min. of the Int., St. Petersburg, 1886.
The following are the sick-rates in a number of Siberian prisons for the year 1884, since which time they have not been reported.
Situation of Prison. Sick-rate, per cent.
Barnaül 37.1 Bíisk 37.9 Ekaterínburg 26.3 Kamishlóva 21.2 Kansk 43.1 Kuznétsk 52
Marínsk 11.9 Minusínsk 26.3 Tára 48.1 Tiukalínsk 47 Turínsk 21.7
— Rep. of Chf . Pris. Adm. for 1884, pp. 216, 217.
The following are the sick-rates in the city prisons of Tomsk and Tobólsk for the years 1883-88 inclusive, computed upon the basis of the total annual number of prisoners.
1883. 1884. 1885. 1886. 1887. 1888. Tomsk [per cent.] 20.7 23.5 42.6 35.2 10.3 8.3 Tobólsk [per cent.] 32.4 31 41.1 45.4 26.8 21.4
— Reps. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for 1886, pp. 220, 221, and Reps. for 1887 and 1888, pp. 291 and 291.
In well-conducted European and American prisons such preventible diseases as typhus and scurvy have long been virtually ​unknown. Both have prevailed to some extent in the convict camps of our Southern States, but I have failed to find any reference to them — at least in epidemic form — in the recent records of regularly organized prisons, either in western Europe or America. Both are common in Russian prisons from St. Petersburg to Kamchátka. Below will be found a statement of the proportion of these diseases to the whole aggregate of sickness in a number of Siberian prisons for a series of years. It is a very incomplete and unsatisfactory statement, for the reason that typhus and scurvy do not appear in the Russian official reports at all unless they constitute more than ten per cent. of the total amount of sickness, and I have been unable, therefore, to fill out the tables.
TYPHUS. Place. 1884. 1886. 1887. 1888.
Áchinsk per cent. Birusínski étape Irbít Irkútsk Ishím étape Koliván Krasnoyársk Marínsk " 13.1 Perm Sheragúlski étape Tirétski étape Tiumén 23.2 Tomsk forwarding prison
. . 16.6 . 15.2 . . 17.5 . . . 55.2 . . 50 . 77.7 . . 17.5 . . . 35.7 . . 23.4 . . 26.5 . . 19 . . 10.9 . . 56.4 . . 62.6 . 1888. 10.8 43 12 11.8 16.6 12.2 39.1 32.9 23.8
Reps. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 222, 221, 316, and 292.
SCURVY. Place. 1884. 1886. 1887. 1888.
Alexándrofsk per cent. Balagánsk Barnaül Chíta Ekaterínburg Kará [Lower] Khabarófka Krasnoyársk Nérchinsk Pavlodár Vérkhni Údinsk Yakútsk
13.2 15 22.8 16.5 23.6 1886. 14.5 10.7 10.5 10.8 25 1887. 20 11.6 1888. 28.4 15.7 15.7 13.7 19.6 — Reps. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 222, 222, 317, and 293. ​IMPROVEMENTS AND AMELIORATIONS.
Below will be found references to all of the improvements and ameliorations in the condition of Siberian prisons and prisoners that I have been able to find in the reports of the prison administration for the years that have elapsed since my return from Siberia.
Place. Nature of Improvement.
Alexándrofsk 3500 rúbles appropriated in 1886 for new kitchen, bakery, and water-closet in Alexándrofsk central prison. Rep. p. 80.
Alexándrofsk Erection of new forwarding prison begun in 1886 and finished in 1888. Reps, pp.. 82 and 99.
Balagánsk 15,000 rúbles appropriated for new prison in 1888. Rep. p. 84.
Bíisk New prison finished in 1888. Rep. p. 99.
Blagovéishchensk New prison finished in 1886. Rep. p. 103.
Irkútsk 25,000 rúbles appropriated in 1888 for new prison hospital. Rep. p. 84.
Khabarófka New prison finished in 1886. Rep. p. 90.
Krasnoyársk 3000 rúbles appropriated in 1886 for capital repairs to the city prison. Rep. p. 86.
Nerchínsk 65,000 rúbles appropriated in 1886, 37,000 in 1887, and 55,000 in 1888, to continue work on new prisons at the Nerchínsk mines. Reps. pp. 79, 82, and 84.
Nerchínsk New prison finished in 1888 at the Nerchínsk mine of Górni Zerentúi. Rep. p. 99.
Perm 2000 rúbles appropriated in 1888 for the organization of a women's section in the Perm prison. Rep. p. 89.
Tobólsk A new palisade erected around the Tobólsk city prison. Rep. p. 88.
Tomsk [city] . . 30,000 rúbles appropriated for the erection of hospital barracks in the Tomsk forwarding prison. Rep. p. 94.
Tomsk [province]
Place. Nature of Improvement.
Trans-Baikál [territory] 4448 rúbles appropriated in 1886 for enlarging the Strétinsk étape. Rep. p. 84.
Vérkhni Údinsk New prison finished in 1886. Rep. p. 90.
Yakútsk [province] 33,000 rúbles appropriated in 1887 for the erection of étapes along the river Lena. Rep. p. 103.
Yeniséisk [province] 729 rubles appropriated for a well at the Kozúlskaya étape. Rep. p. 80.
The most important works included in the above list are the new prisons at Vérkhni Údinsk and Górni Zerentúi. Unfortunately they were both unnecessarily expensive, and both, in my judgment, were erected in places where they were least needed. The prison building's that were in most urgent need of enlargement or reconstruction, it seemed to me, were the forwarding prisons of Tiumén, Tomsk, and Áchinsk, the étapes between Tomsk and Irkútsk, and the étape lazarets of Birusínskaya, Tirétskaya, and Skeragúlskaya, which were not only shamefully overcrowded, but were literally hot-beds of virulent contagion. Nothing seems to have been done, however, since my return from Siberia, to relieve the terrible overcrowding of the prisons and étapes along the great Siberian road.
* ↑ A political offender exiled by administrative process. Her story will be found in chapter XI, Vol. 1.
* ↑ 1
* ↑ According to Prof. Huxley the air space required by one adult human being is 800 cubic feet. The 1700 cubic feet in the Cheremkhófski prison, therefore, would have been adequate for two prisoners only. In private residences in Russia, the air space regarded as essential for one grown person is a little more than the whole amount of air space available in the Cheremkhófski prison for thirty persons. [See magazine Rússkaya Misl., p. 61. Moscow. May, 1891.] [Author's note.]
* ↑ It will be remembered that the authorities in Irkútsk recently assured us, in print, that in Eastern Siberia no prison disorders whatever had been discovered. [Note of the editor of the Vostóchnoe Obozrénie.]
* ↑ The computation has been made upon the whole number of prisoners for the year, not upon the daily average number.
* ↑ The reports of the Russian prison administration are not published until two years or more after the time to which they relate, and the report for 1888, which appeared in 1890, is the last that I have received.