The daily gazette., 1879-06-24

Wild anu Jlt SQ6IpcI OatlS Va pAS ~ ~
sacks. Do not deem this exaggeration. !.
| swear to YOU, by my mothers honor, /,
am telling you the simple facts Of my
experience as one of many hundreds as =
unfortunate as myself. -
DEATHS WERE rRIGHrFuLLY FAroUfhr
o ecu 81 md Q ha ed neA /, " ~ day
to dig tn. graves OF comrades happier
than ourselves. The ravens followed o9r Il
convoy In an ominous black cloud nc
effort was made TO doctor the SICK. Onco = =
the fever or the dysentery became 80 sel
march; he was tsssed into one OF che
provision Wagons, where hejOlted aicO Og ~
till the last breath was shaken out ~ =.
him.
tit was not until the middle Of August
that our slow journey brought rs 70 :.
Tomsk. There We got weeks rest. Then ma
We were broken up into gangs OF. twenty ~
or thirty, usually three-fOurtbs men, and
sent In different directions. OF the MfeisN
that followed 1 can give you but IA tat,c1
tutline, a. circumstantial account Of ,tisfl
would require volume.
THERE ARE TWO CLASSES OF EN-; Iofs -
MENT s4HfirNj~ tfii s1NfSl II
for an exile to Siberia, which may be do ~
fined as labor above and below ground.
That above ground is stone breaking,
road making, work in the quarries, aud :
on the Government estates and labor for III
onc COiicCuOuiSlS, tuclnSClNCo CAtioos pNb
Of some means. Lesser Offenders are -
employed at this. j. v'.i = gesi
"For the others are the mines. That
is to say, slow death. Prince Lubomir- ''
ski, the author of "The Exiles," 10 the y 1
only literateur who hos ever laid bare !,
the infamy of these underground bells to
the world. Even he has not done them 81
Justice, though he has written with mag Is
nificent indignation of their horrors.
But let me endeavor to give you and
your readers some idea of them. ~ IS s.l
"The chief quicksilver mines Of Stber7, !.
ia are situated in the Ural Mountai us.
They are worked by the worst hetnOus {
Of the con eicts, that is to say, by crimt-
mails whose misdeeds are blood-curdltng,
and by politi cal prisoners whose views sAi
are particul rly inimlcal to Russian OIL ~
ciai politics. The Russian papers de-
clare that no women are employed In, "
| the quicksilver mines. fr : eag-ii ra9,
THAT Is A LIE, f.s-i 81 aE,
Women are working and rottipg to
pieces BY inches there, In scores. All
the Nihilist women sentenced to bard -
labor IN 81 beria are now putrefylng .tpad
those mines. Hard labor means the
mines to men and women alike. IL 'iBoy'
the same as a death sentence, s0nly, the aa
halter and the ak kill quickly, while 81
berian hard labor takes five or six Year,,
to torture it's victim into q salivatedf
grave. 4 speak by the card. b have til
toiled in the Lake Baikal Mines.
For four years 1 worked in a pit and -
never saw the sunlight. worked and
slep as many other women worked and !,
slept, six hundred feet underground.
Separated in small parties, we tofled dawn
| by day, picking and sitting the ore =
which the picks of the men mined out.
4 At night we slept on heaps of damp u
straw in caves followed out by the mi-. >.
ners. Patrols Of soldiers went up and
down the galleries of the mine 'inces- .
| sanity and woe befall the man or woman N
who was found idle. The lash or the rod y,
was their poi ton. ,'.''''
STIRRING US TO WORK. 'i's.
"In that dreadful section, where the ss
horrors OF the quicksilver pits burroW y,
deep in the frozen earth, winter is nine
months long. For weeks the DAYS af9ts
only five hours in length. But, what y
mattered it to us. Even in the highs Of
the brief midsummer no warm breath OF 4
the sun reached us. The same wet, 3.
frosted, chill air blew in the long oalr,
leries of the mines. The same icv water
streamed down from the walls and pud.- ~
died the Irregular floor. The dim, ,..sfckly 4
.a G,eam OF "a lantern was our only substi-
rible that the very soldiers who guarded !.
US more than once revolted against tie
confinement, and demanded to be all.li
lowed a weeks furlough. The guards NJ
barracks being above ground at the .
head Of the shafts. The soldiers ansi,d
their officers were all practically exiles. &,
"You see me to-day, sir thanks to the
Urai mines, prematurely old woman y
l lost my hair, my eyebrows, my very 4,
eye-lashes. Ny body became mass of
sores, my joints stiffened and swelled, pa
my sight failed me, my hearing, smell :,
and voice were gone. was living
, corpse, SCARED with the wounds Of 4iSS
taskInaster's whip, when an order y was a
received at Pleinovhik for my release.
Men once sent to the mines are never set
free: Women rarely. But the devotion Sf
my Invan, who had emigrated to ,this.,
country, secured the support of higher
author es. and my freedom was granted q
me on condiuon aiacl L.AtslI siss7
| THAT LEFT RUSSIA FOREVER
lay eleven months in a Parisau h,s.d
pital, more dead than alive ,before,II5i
could even walk. 1t was nearly; a wear.
before dared. venture on the voyaGeS
which brought me here" tis hhE E,ex
Nil. Litvani is the betrothed of Mr..
Invan Dolgourouki, the proprietor of
the Russian Farm. 1t was he and Ms,
, friends who welcomed her so effusjyalv.
on her arrival in New York. AS soon a.
, she is sufficiently recovered ManhASthus
Island will be the scene Of .Nthilise9
l marriage. .. -.... -. -, -.