Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-09-27

come first, and with it the total SUBJ
version of everything now distinct
i've Of her political and social sys-
tenn. The wonderful thing is that
she is still intent upon the unprofit-
able extension of her territories in
Central Asia, when all her energies
and all her wisdom are so much
needed at home.
An English journal elsewhere cited draws
a fearful picture of a Russian prison-ship
met at Port Said. But whatever the truth
may be as TO the condition of the unfortu-
nate prisoners now on their way from
Odessa through the Red Sea and the oceans
of the East TO living death of hard labor
in the coal mines of that "Asiatic Iceland"
the island of Saghalien, the fact that the
Russian Government has resolved to make
that island a new Siberia IS full of sign1fi-
canoe. 1t bears witness to the existence
even in Asiatic Russia of the same forces
and impulses which are shaking the fabric
OF the European empire of the Cars. The
name of Siberia has long been identified in
/ the West with exile and desolation, and
/ when we consider how vast the distances
exc which separate the wide wastes OF Russia
/ in Asia from the centres ofthe Russian pop
/ ulation in Europe, it may well seem as II
nature had guaranteed the despOtism OF st.
/ Petersburg and Moscow against any peril OF
! disturbance either by the victims of its pol
| icy or by the influence of their ideas and
| their passions, within the faT-oH circle OF
I the frigid zone in Asia. From Central Rus
STA, where the trains of prisoners sentenced
! to transportation are organized and de-
| spatched through acknowledgement, kaZan
/ Penn and Tobolsk TO Siberia, the distance to
| Tiumen, the first village of Western Siberia
/ exceeds ], 800 miles, and to Middle Siberia il
| exceeds 1880 miles. Over these wears
/ leagues the miserable eXileS used to be
| driven, chiefly on foot and often in chains
by squadrons of CoSSacl1 cavalry, the hoIri
4 BILE journey sometimes occupyinga calendar
year. They are now transported over Inucf
of the distance in huge barges tOwed by
! steamers, and from the point of phySica
and moral suffering 1t may be doubted
whether in this transit they undergo mor'
cruel torture than the cOnVicts sent by Eng
land or by France to the anupOdeS. Blu
remote as Siberia IS from Western Russia
the agitation of the age has gradually ANN
hilated the spaces which divide them, anC
for ten years past the Siberian people haVl
/ been growing more ana more restless Unde
| q system which has retarded the develop
! ment and infected the very substance
| Siberian society. For such thing exists a
/ Siberian society. and the ASiatic empire o
| the Cars, stirring with life of its own, be
gins like the AuStralaSian empire OF Eng
| land, to protest against being treated an.
| longer as the sink of the mother country
| There are now no fewer than four million
l-Of free Russians in Siberia. The countf,
has vast resources of ell sorts, many adVan
tages of climate, great rivers and an act1v
commerce. Thanks to the transportation
system, life and property are much less SAT
there than in European Russia. In the gov
eminent of Tobolsk it is estimated that on
crime year is committed by every seventy
, two cOnVictS, and in the government c
Tomsk one crime year by every seventy
six convictS. In Siberia at large one Violen
robbery to every 81 900 inhabitants and on
J homicide to less than 1900 inhabitants shoN
that the criminal average is ten time
greater than in Western Europe. This
bad enough. But in addition to this SIber1
struggles in vain against the obloquy earne
for her very name by the transportation
system. The number of convicts and polit
ical exiles which under Nicholas average
some eight thousand a year has increase
under Alexander II. to nearly twenty thou:
and a year. The steady flow eastward {
this criminal colonization checks all Othe
colonization of Siberia. And hence it hs
come TO pass that even in Siberia a spirit {
2 resistance to the imperial authority and a
, angry disposition no longer to tolerate tn
abuses of CZarisn have manifested them
. selves of late SO clearly and decidedly tia
/ the Government has begun to consider til
practicability of diVerting its criminals an
It's enemies southwark to Turlxestan and fl
2 eastward to Saghalien.