The mountain sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1844-1853, 1852-02-05

| 0' oc'Ne. IiS Iamlly Is thenceiortf
isuspected-perhaps ruined and degraded-and
I for himself-he is lost forever!
Lost! What means that word? Killed
Dut 1t is apparently something more than
DEATH since it is the occupation of the Office,
to hight and SO expose himself to death-otLer-
WISE, says ne, he would be lost
! I'll" ---f' - - sv'@eu Tor the army. saws
- am lost" He is in the very depth of his
! misfortune; he can descend no lower. But
the officer can descend: he has yet something
to fear, which is worse to him than death-he
fears Siberia.
| When the serf is made 4 soldier, his body
only is taken. They care not for his heart: but
with the officer, it is the soul that is needed ::
'He problem OF the Russian government being,
J how to seize the soul of man whose life of
insupportable misery renders death Indifferent
! to him.
This soul has been early deadened in those
schools where is taught only the yoid-nothing
notwithstanding moral; SO that, from very
"earlness, he is thrown into the arms of those
| enerv"ting pleasures which deadens it yet more
But even this twofold operation does not ALWAYS
succeed in extinguishng a strong mind All
must be overcome-and that By 4 moral ter
rof. what ror!-An unknown punishment
Inc Catholic lnquisition, besides its dungeons
and tortures, continued 10 the end its physical
torments, by moral torment-an eternal hell
the ingenuity of time. Russia has its helI-an
ininity of space-the horror of the desert. and
of the void.
y never-ending distance. He who makes
the Journey on foot, loaded with heavy chains,
starts young, and arrives aged-a man. twenty
five years old, full of health and life started
| from Poland; three years after, a shadow
dropped into Kamtschatka
multitude Of sufferings result from tba
climate itself-merciless climate! Some few
degrees nearer 10 the Polar Sea were sufficient
10 cause death.
II the hussian, even at home, shut up six
months iii his oven, his heated room, can with
difficulty keep out the furious north wind. what
must 1t be III this second Russia where the
cold eats into you, where steeis breaks like
glass, where even the dogs that draw the
sledges would inevitably perish were they not
cased 'sith fur?
To arrive there without resource would be
III
not come too quickly. Established in a small
fort, III tue midst of the icy desert-during two
Z or three years, sometimes longer, digging the
earth or drawing the barrow, fed upou sour
milk and bad fish, the exiles die slowly beneath
the lash.
Even those who are not condemned to this
terrible doom, but who have kind of half
hberty-a sort OF physical existence, almost
tolerab!e find the moral effect scarcely less
dreadful. Ii, 10 them, Siberia is not an eternity
oil suffering, 1t is one OF forgetiuiness. where
they feel themselves disappear-dyipp AWAY
from the living world, from their f,mil es
from the!r friends 10 lose ones name, to be
! called Number 10, or Number 20, and, il YOUR
family still remain, to beget children without
a name, miserable race, which will perne,,,.to
itself III eternal wretcheducss! The ruined
man ruins his childrln-Ie is cursed-so are
they-and 10y ii trightful crescendo it happens
THAT the children OF Il man who is hinset con
! denned to the mines for twenty wears I'll
remain miners for forty OF fifty wears. ar even
J unto death, their children alter them, and all
their posterity.
Siberia not only draws degradation upon
persons, thence transported but also unon
things. A bell was transported there for h:-
wing sounded the tocsn during a ravoit-ean-
mons were transported, and received the knout
ut Tobo.ski. But degradation is indeed n most
Serious affair to persons, where it implies bas
tinadoing at will.
HAD the eziles only to fear complete change
In their habits, the passage from an INDECENT
Asatic life, to life OF labor even that would
alone be sufficient to render Siberia the dread
OF the Russian. Their etfeminate mode of life
can hardly bear the easy existence of the West
OF Europe. Russian lady declared to me
that 1t Was impossible for her to exist in France:
an infinite number of Eastern Injuries were
wanting to her. Our servants appeared too
rough for her; their voices harsh and proud
she could not support the natural friction of Il
world OF equality. She missed the hatter.es
and attentions OF her women, her life of heated
rooms and batbs--the tepid atmosphere of her
Russian house. What would have become If
this poor woman, if, insteud of the journey to
Paris, which she found painful, she had per-
formed the voyage to Siberia?
There is tradition in Russia that Catherine,
Tor, perhaps, one of the expresses who precc-
ded her, IN order to lower the pride of certain
great ladies, occasionally favored them with an
order Tor their fagellation, which was to be
performed by their servants in their own pala-