The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-08 00:00:00

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THE SUN, LoNnov, WEDNESDAY EVEN!

G, OCTOBER 8, 1862.

THE STORY OF A SIBERIAN EXILE.

711 E RUSSIAN EMPIRE.

fish. Indeed, the whole project appears to have
been formed with a view to quite a new state of
things in Russia, and ploblibly this has been the
fault with many other schemes prepared by the
committees. To be able to abolish the censorship,
to be able to keep Polish troops in Polish provinces,
it would first of all be necessary to produce a gene-
ral feeling of content throughout the empire. It
would be necessary that the Poles should be go-
verned as Poles, and that Poles and Russians should
both be governed, to some extent, through their
representatives.

In some recent numbers of the Revue des Deux _Halides
there appeared a narrative condensed from the book of an
escaped exile of Siberia which was published in 1861, and
which deserves to better known to English readers. The
writer, M. Rufin 'Piotrowski, is almost a solitary example
(there has been, indeed, but one other) of a man relegated
to that dismal prison-house who has attempted his escape
and who has succeeded and lived to tell his extraordinary
story. It appears that the writer went from Paris to Ka-
mieniec, in Podolia, in 1843, under a feigned name and with
an English passport, being desirous of revisiting a country
from which he had been banished, and having some politi-
cal objects in view, when, after a sojourn of some months,
he was detected by the Russian police, sent in custody to
Kiew, and there condemned to his Siberian banishment.
Some curious experiences fell to his lot even at this the first
stage of his detention, such as the inquiries of the Russian
soldiers after the Grand Duke Constantine, dead in 1831,
and whom they still believe to be livirg, somewhere or
other, in concealment. It is curious that an impression
like that which awaited the return of King Arthur, of Se-
bastian, or Barbarossa, should prevail in his case also, and
that even on the borders of the White Sea, at Archangel,
the author should hear of a white-haired man in the prison
of Solovetsk who had become blind in consequence of the
many tears he had shed, and who was no other than the
missing Archduke. At Kiew also the author encountered
some example of the barbarous punishments inflicted by the
Russian authorities. Four thousand strokes of the rod in
one case, of which half the number were sufficient to pros-
trate the recipient, though boasting of his tough skin, were
a premonitory intimation to the author of the rigour of his
own fate if he offended the officers intrusted with his de-
portation to Siberia.
The author's status of noble exempted him from the
worst infliction, that of making the journey to Siberia en
convoi and on foot. ro those who incur the latter sentence,
and they are the great majority, amounting as they did then
to about 10,000 annually, the journey from Kiew to Tobolsk
occupies a full year, and if they are assigned to the mines
of Nertchinsk, in the Government of Irkutsk, upwards of
two years. During this long and exhausting journey they
are liable to the knout or to other murderous punishments
which the author describes. But he himself, though con-
demned to hard labour, was transported in a kibitka, laden
with heavy chains, which distressed him terribly, as a
milder alternative. Arrived at Ekaterininski Zarod,he was
at first condemned to work in irons at the Government dis-
tillery, in the company of atrocious criminals. His chains
were, however, removed, and by degrees his lot was ame-
liorated, until eventually, like some of his educated compa-
triots, he was employed as a clerk in the distillery office.
He was, nevertheless, liable to corporal chastisement at the
caprice of the superintendent, though by his diligence,
patience, and tact he contrived to escape this indignity. In
his position as clerk he had, moreover, various opportuni-
ties of obtaining information from the inhabitants of diffe-
rent districts who resorted to the distillery for trading pur-
poses, and by this information he qualified himself for the
tremendous venture, which he subsequently hazarded, of a
run for life and liberty. Before he arrived at the point of
carrying out this audacious project he had, however, full
opportunities of learning the fate of those who languished
in hopeless durance or who had attempted flight in vain.
One curious and shocking incident of Siberian exile is the
destiny which attends the children who may be born to the
prisoners, and who are fated to remain serfs of the Crown.
Even when their parents are amnestied and permitted to
return, this degradation still attaches to the children unless
they are exempted by special decree; yet even this has not
prevented noble Polish ladies from following their hus-
bands, though under the condition also that once in Siberia
they must henceforth remain there. Attempts at escape
were punished by incarceration in the fortress of Akatouia
or by more summary tortures. The writer tells the story
of a certain Abbe Sierocinsk who attempted to organize
a concerted effort for the liberation of himself and his
companions, and who was condemned to 7,000
strokes " sans snerci," and who received the last
3,000 on his lifeless body. Another Pole, Wysocki,
incarcerated at Akatouia, had formed the design of forcing
his way with his comrades across the Steppes to Persia or
China--so chimerical were the hopes entertained by these
unhappy exiles, and so invariable, except in the author's
case, had been their speedy frustration.
At the end of 1845 an ordinance of the Emperor Nicholas
enjoined a more rigorous treatment of the Siberian pri-
soners, and threatened to abridge the little liberty which
the author then enjoyed, whereupon he revolved more de-
terminedly his project of escape. It is startling as a mea-
sure of the enterprise to find him undecided as to whether
he should run for the Sea of Okhotsk or Bokhara and India,
or for the Caspian and the aircassiatut, and ultimately elect-
ing for the route over the Ural and by the steppe of Pet-
chore for Archangel. The grande route by which he had
arrived in Siberia was out of the question, because the resi-
dents on it have views of their own as to escaped convicts.
In fact, they have one economic maxim, that in killing a
squirrel they get but a single skin, while in killing a varnak,
as they designate the exiles, they get three—his coat, his
shirt, and his human skin to boot. Thus the writer re-
solved to make for Archangel, and having furnished him-
self with sham passports and some little money, on the Bth
of February, 1846, he crossed the Irtiche at night by a boat
which was left unguarded on its bank, and, disguised as a
Russian peasant, he commenced his unprecedented journey.
Its success probably turned on the single lucky chance of
his meeting a peasant at the outset who gave him a lift be-
hind two fleet horses as far as Tara. Here he found other
horses, and in a few stages he got quickly ahead of his pur-
suers, if, as is likely, he was pursued. It was rarely that
he ventured to claim a refuge at the Izbas on his route, and
though the winter was one of unusual rigour he plunged at
nightfall into the forest and slept Ostiak fashion in a hole
in the snow. He states that by degrees he acquired great
skill in the construction of this species of shelter, and that
he contrived to take repose there, though the absence of
warm nourishment was most distressing to him, and
the frozen bread which at intervals he procured at the
Ostiak cabins was a miserable support under such extreme
hardships. As a rule, the inhabitants whom he ventured
to accost were compassionate and hospitable, though in one
place he was suspected, from his possession of four shirts,
an unusual number for a Russian peasant, and at another
place he was robbed of some of his little stock of money,
and of his passport which was a more serious bereavement.
Crossing the crest of the Ural mountains by moonlight, the
grotesque desolation of their scenery deepened the terrors
and depressions of his strange situation; yet after two
months of this savage existence in the snow and the forests
he reached the gates of Veliki Oustiong in April, 1846,
Up to this point he had affected the character first of a
traveller to the fair at Irbite, then of a workman seeking
employment, and now he assumed that of a pilgrim going
to salute the sacred images of the Convent of Solovetsk in
the White Sea, for all which personations he had to make
incessant study of the convenanees of his situation and
status. In company with a number of other pilgrims he
worked his passage down the Dwina to Archangel, threw
his coin into the stream in common with the rest in order
to render his voyage propitious, and at length beheld the
bourne of his exhausting journey in the forest of masts
which crowded that busy port. Here, however, as he crept
along the quays, desiring but not daring to accost some
foreign captain in the sight of his countrymen, he observed
that a Russian official barred the entry to every vessel,
and, as he dared not confront the latter without his pass-
port, on the very threshold of liberty he was compelled to
renounce his project.
It is a striking proof of his resolution and perseverance
that at this point he determined to make a further attempt
to reach the Lake of Onega, and thence, by the River Svir,
the Lake of Ladoga, and the Neva, proceed to St. Peters-
burg. At St. Petersburg he was lucky in making a cheap
bargain with the master of a steam-vessel bound for Riga,
and he traversed Courland and Lithuania, till he got to the
Prussian frontier. Between Polonga and Kurszany, ho ran
the gauntlet of the frontier guard, was fired at but escaped,
and ultimately reached Konigsberg. Even here ho was
not yet out o f danger, for there existed a convention be-
tween Russia and Prussia for the exchange of fugitives,
and at that time, on account of the disturbed state of Posen,
twhase
cazepsastesdioann dofththroewnchieifnatoutphroisroitnie,
sw,when
the Prussian authorities were unusually vigilant. At
hijeo an pi gp
es ba
elo er gd
ht
to their astonishment detailed his extraordinary escape.
To their credit. be it said, they were shocked at the obliga-
tion to deliver up a man who had made such efforts to re-
gain his freedom, and they connived at his escape by way
of Germany to France. On the 22d of September, 1846, he
again found himself in Paris, which he had quitted four
years previously, and when the Revolution of 1848 broke
out he engaged in new efforts for the enfranchisement of
his country. In the leisure which followed the failure of
these, he composed, as he tells us, the memoir of his flight,
which the best authorities in Paris have accepted as en-
tirely authentic. Had his situation permitted him to keep
a journal of its incidents day by day, it would have been
doubtless still more interesting from the particularity of its
details. Its successive incidents at present are related with
a vagueness occasioned by their resemblance one to another,
lus capacity of
and by the difficulty of recalling. them ohe by one after the
interval of a year or two. As it is, the reader will find some
curious illustrations of Russian life and manners in these
torpid latitudes, and especially some strange. traits of Rua-
pilgri.ms are
.as lax.f in their morals
as they are scrupulous in their devotions, we. may credit
psiialgrn
ismurrTsthiteionnuosbssieaurved by the water in
the author's experience of their deportment in the Cara-
awihoythodoxy.
vansera of Archangel, where the devotees of
with
sexes ex-
hibitedresist.
contribution
that collection of writings on Siberia o
Bu But
tlO frailtiestbhoeok is
al-lf which Pola dto
especiallych are compatible
important
aspirit y *he
=co to the Aluocoyito dominion.
al-
ready possesses a considerable
alivelibrar, nd which bn t
bitter resentments they evoke, keep its

An oukaz, signed by the Emperor at Novgorod,
and published a few days afterwards in the official
journal, stays the action of all sentences of confisca-
tion pronounced against Poles from 1831 until the
present time. As usual, however, in documents of
this kind, certain exceptional eases ale provided for
in which the clemency of the Sovereign will not be
exercised. If an estate has been confiscated, sold,
and paid for, there is an end of the matter, and the
dispossessed proprietor must put up with his loss.
But if it should appear that some estate, confiscated
30 years ago has not been sold, but is at this moment
in the hands of the Russian Government, then the
Polish proprietor, if he has profited by the Impe-
rial amnesty of 1856, and has returned to Poland,
may claim his land, and will be reinstated in pos-
session thereof. Moreover, if any instalment or in-
stalments be yet owing on the purchase of an estate
confiscated and sold by the Government, the sums
so due are to be placed at the disposal of the late
proprietor, provided always that he has obtained
the Emperor's pardon and has gone back to his
native country. This recent oukaz confirms the
oukaz of 1859, which confirms that of 1856, which
grants pardon and the right of returning to Poland
to all exiles who may petition e Emperor to that
effect, and who have not rend ed themselves un-
worthy of mercy by their " in rrigible hatred" to
1 p
the Imperial Government, ~giii most of the exiles
had, in some way or other, given proofs of a very
natural aversion to the Power which had driven
them from their homes, as none were to have any
portion of their property restored to them, and as
all were to remain for three years under the sur-
veillance of the police, it was to be expected that
very few indeed would be able to profit by the so-
called amnesty of 1856. Those, however, who did
contrive to take advantage of it may now claim their
confiscated property, if, by some curious and almost
inexplicable accident, it should turn out that it was
not sold or given away 30 years ago.
Some of the German papers estimate the increase
in the Russian army consequent on, the recruiting
just ordered at 300,000, and even 350,000 men. It
would be nearer the mark to say that the latter
figure will represent the entire effective force after
the recruiting has taken place. It must be remem-
bered not only that there has been no regular levy
of men in Russia since the Crimean
year, but also
that, in addition to the losses by natural deaths
during a period of nearly seven years, the army
has been greatly weakened by continual campaign-
ing in the Caucasus both before and after the cap-
ture of Schamyl. As for the levy just ordered at
the rate of 5 per 1,000, it will give scarcely more
than 100,000 men. Five recruits have to be sup-
plied by every thousand males of the classes liable
to military service, not by every thousand of the po-
pulation in general. The number of male peasants
of all kinds—the peasantry forming by far the
most important of the classes in question—amounts
to about 20,000,000. It is many years since
Russia has been able to content herself with
such a small army as she has now. At the end
of last year the entire military force of
the country, according to official documents, was
composed of 450,000 men of all arms, and there
were probably not 300,000 really prepared to take
the field. In 1829, just after the Turkish, and im-
mediately before the Polish war, the Russian army,
if all the regiments had been complete, would have
numbered 1,400,000 men. That was the nominal
force, as shown by the records of the Ministry of
War; and competent military authorities say that
there was an effective force of 750,000, which, in
1 before Warsaw was taken in 1831.
1 spite of successive recruitings, was greatly reduced

In spite of propositions contradictory in them-
selves, there appears to have been a certain unity
of purpose between the various committees, and
even between the committees and the assemblies of
the nobility. We do not hear of any committee
having reported that there was no necessity for
change in the Russian system of Government, and
that the views of the Emperor Nicholas ought to be
carried out to the fullest possible extent. On the
other hand, every committee, either with intention
or from the nature of the case, seems to have re-
commended a reform of such a kind that it could
not be put into practise without being accompanied
by other reforms. For instance, if the censorship
were abolished, it would be necessary to establish
tribunals for trying press offences; and it would be
better that the censorship should remain than that,
such tribunals having once been established, per-
sons brought before them should not have the ad-
vantage of trial by jury, instead of being left at
the mercy of a judge nominated by the Government
and removable at will. If trial by jury were
established, it would be necessary to have advocates
to address the jury and to question the witnesses.
In short, the abolition of the censorship, to be a
measure of utility, would have to be followed by a
complete transformation of the present iniquitous
mode of legal procedure in Russia. It is hard to
think of any abuse, injustice, or even great incon-
venience in the Russian system of affairs that could
be remedied simply by itself. There is a disadvan-
tage in this, inasmuch as it renders minor reforms
and gradual changes next to impossible. The kind
of change which it necessitates was plainly indi-
cated by the committees of the nobility last year,
when, being consulted by the Government as to
the advisability of forming land-credit institutions,
they replied that it was quite indispensable to form
them, and utterly impossible to do so, except
through the labours of a representative body.
At present, all that is likely to come of the cele-
bration at Novgorod, from which so much was ex-
pected, is known. The Russians get nothing. The
nobles get what they can manage to extract from
their newly-recognised right, under certain circum-
stances, to claim property that was confiscated 30
years ago, in case the Government should have for-
gotten to sell it.

There is nothing very alarming in the Russian
army being increased by 100,000 men, but the
manner in which the increase is to be brought
about proves that the system of army reform
recommended by the Committee (or " Commis-
sion ") on Military Affairs is not likely to be
adopted. Last year and the year before all
sorts of possible and impossible reforms in
the Russian Administration were being discussed
by innumerable committees appointed for the pur-
' at
n
asp it pur-
pose.
s e
afterwards All
these
caopmpmeaitrteedes worked separately, and,
patible with those proposed by another. It was
hoped that they would ultimately be united so as
to form one general committee, which might have
quuripteese insCotm
reforms proposed by one, beig often the
reforms cross purposes,
been made the nucleus of a regular deliberative as-
sembly, composed of members nominated by the
out of the system, directly
Crown, and members elected by the various pro-
vinces of the empire. Nothing, however, has come
that the committee intrusted with the elaboration
of the emancipation scheme acquitted itself of its
task in a very masterly manner, from a bureau-
cratic point of view—though the law, as published
and attempted to be put i or indirectly, except
n force, appears to pos-
sess the disadvantage of being impracticable.
The other committees had not, for the most part,
to go to work on a plan already
accepted by the
vTehren
Committee
tinit
Government, but to make suggestions and recom-
mendations of their own. Thus, the Committee on
Press
s heMattersti l d
be
e advised
abolished—instead
which
thecensor-
ship
G o
m
tee abolishedo u m i fourlita r y
Affairs, independenthavi
having
journals.
ne
con-
sider ul
sider how the expense of the army could be di-
minished without lessening its itefficiency,v and how
it could be recruited without interfering too much
with agricultural labours, recommended that each
sahtldat be a
province or " government" should furnish 5,000 men
nod u h
portion
allowed
o f
tthe
continue number,
the
cultivationbein gdrilled,
their fields, unless circumstances absolutelyrequired
that they should be called under arms. It was also
proposed that the regiments maintained in a con-
stant state of efficiency should receive increased pay;
that schools and reading societies should be estab-
lished at all barracks ; that improved hospital ac-
commodation should be provided, and that corporal
punishment should be done away with. In the
course of its deliberations this committee had had
the advantage of receiving reports from officers who
had been sent to examine the hospitals, barracks,
military schools, and military systems in general of
Germany, France, and England; and it cannot be
doubted that at one time serious intentions were
entertained of improving the position of the Russian
soldier, both morally and materially. At present,
however, the military Sunday schools, established
by the officers of various regiments at their own
expense, have, in common with all the others, been
closed, and all the military reading societies that
had been formed are also broken up. We see, too,
that the recruiting is to take place as under the
old system, and that the peasants will have to fur-
nish recruits for the first time these seven years, at
the very moment when they will be suffering the
most bitter disappointment from finding that their
land is really not to be given up to them, and that
if they wish to possess it as absolute property they
must pay for it.
It is a curious fact that the Government has
not only not adopted any one of the recom-
mendations made by the Military Committee, but
has acted in a precisely contrary spirit to many
committee
m
system
of them, even when it had not been doing so
before. 'thish is
will
be
if encouraging
the
mittee
to members
of other committees,
should ever be resorted to again. There was one
manifest impossibility, however, in the new plan
for recruiting and organising the army.
Each pro-
vince was to have its own troops. Thus, the nine
western provinces, taken from Poland at the first,
second, and third partitions, would have possessed
a little army (45,000 men) recruited from a popula-
tion which the Russians can demonstrate by ethno-
logical reasoning to be thoroughly Russian, but
which has proved itself by arguments of a more po-
sitive nature to be decidedly Polish just as Jersey-
raen,though speaking a French patois and of French
descent, are by history and patriotic feeling Eng-

----

iN LWS PAPER
2'llE OC' U.F G` Atv,
'
•
The large receipts of Surat cotton ativerpri7
late have had the cfluct of greatly inereaEtt
estimated stock on hand, which is happily now
larger than at any previous period during the pre-
sent half-year. Thus the weekly course of aff.airs
has been as follows during the last 14 weeks, as
compared with the corresponding period of 1861
and 1860:

Stock. 1862. 1861. 1860.
July 4 ivles 184,940 .. 1,108,300 .. 1,293,490
„11
„18
„25 oAug.0Aug. 2 „
„ 9
„16
.. 944,360 _ 1,157,590
„ 23
~82,420 912,130 1,128,210
30
887,120 1,093,200
Sept. 5
„12
„19
„26
If
Oct. 3
The ordinary course of trade is thus being com-
pletely reversed, fur while in September and Oeto•
ber the stock had usually declined, it has this
autumn increased. The present consumption and
export demand cannot be said to exceed 25,000
bales per week, and, as the foregoing estimate shows
a stock of 212,000 bales on hand at the close of last
week, while in many quarters it is affirmed that the
total should be given at 250,000 or 300,000 bales—
as too 271,000 bales are estimated to be still at sea
from India, and from 5,000 to 10,000 bales will no
doubt continue to drop in weekly from other quar-
ters, the prospects of the supply certainly look
more hopeful than for some time past, notwith-
standing the obstinate continuance of hostilities in
the American States.

PROTECTION OF SHIPS' PROPELLERS.

A trial, by order of the Admiralty, has been made
at Portsmouth of the Cunningham plan for protect-
ing the screws of steamships from fouling by under-
lying warps, wreckage, or other ffoating material,
with a small screw yacht, belonging to Mr. Cun-
ningham, the patentee of the system of reefing top-
sails from the deck, and fitted with his "screw pro-
tectors," which is a simple application of radius bars
from the inner sternpost, and deadwood, with chains
reaching from them to the ship's quarter and keel,
and a network of rope and chain at the water's edge
in the run of the ship. The tests first applied were
those most likely to occur under ordinary circum-
stances of losing masts and rigging from the effects
of the weather or from the shot of an adversary, in
both instances being supposed to be under steam
with the spars •and wreckage sucking under the
quarters. A boat's spar with loose rigging attached,
and numbers of ends of ropes floating, to represent
spar wreckage, was thrown overboard from each
bow, fore and main chains, checked with guiding
lines to bring it under the quarters, the vessel
yawed wide over in order to bring the wreckage
across the vessel's stern, and therefore as closely as
possible in contact with the working screw (the
Swinger gunboat having the vessel in tow at full
speed); but every attempt to bring a" fouling
failed, and the " protector" proved to be thoroughly
efficient. These tests were next repeated at half
speed, and were attended with the same results. A
quantity of ropes, coir and hemp, was next made
up in loose coils and flung overboard from each bow,
and also from the chains on each side, and the whole
mass, with their numerous floating loose ends, were
checked along the sides of the protectors to give
every chance of fouling the screw. This was,
however, again found to be impossible, and fur-
ther experiments in this direction were therefore
abandoned. In the concluding experiment the
schooner was made fast from its stem to the gun-
boat's stern with a short length of hawsers, the gun-
boat then going a-head at full speed, when the
spar and wreckage were thrown over from the
gunboat between the ends of the protectors over
the schooner's screw. It, as a matter of course,
became fouled at once and gave an illustrative
proof of the want of some means of protection
from floating wreck, hawsers, Szc,, of our ships
of war when under steam. The experiments,
which were considered of a most satisfactory
character, were carried oat under the superinten-
dence of Commander Miller, of her Majesty's ship
Asia, Mr. Hill, master of the same ship, and Mr..
Murdoch, inspector of machinery afloat.