Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-06-21

the mere thought OF which even to
day makes my blood run cold.
After the start we marched b,
day and camped at night, always il
the open air, in the forest, or on tn,
outskirts of the villages, Our onl,
shelter was our clothing. Our 1000
was worm bored biscuit and con
demned salt beef, which was carried
in the wagons in our rear. Water W,
got from the roadside puddles. Some
times. in passing through a village, W,
would find bowls of hot cabbage soup
fresh bread and jars of liquor whicl
the villagers had set there for us
These would be fairly shared amen.
us, after our guards had had all they
wanted. But, as may be imagined
the feast days
WERE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN.
We marched without halt to Mini
Novgorod. The annual fair was in
progress there, and through the
streets, crowded with happy people,
we were driven, h%andcuffed as at the
start, like sheep to the shambles. A
dead silence fell around us as we ad-
vanced, and people drew back as from
a train of lepcrs. In this shape we
passed into the citadel, where we
spent a week in the classmates.
"A steamboat towed our barge
down the Volga to Kama, and thence
to Peru. There we landed and our
foot journey once more began. The
weather was insufferably hot and the
steppes deep with summer dust.
We marched day in, day out, in a
~sufocating cloud, consumed by thirst.
roasting with fever, but still urged
forward by the sharp crack Of the
whip and the sharper oaths of the
Cossacks. Do not deem this exag-
geratioh. | 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 FRIGHTPULLY FIRE.
QUENT,
Of course, and we halted nearly every
day TO dig the graves Of comrades
happier than ourseles. The ravens
followed our convoy in an ominous
cloud. No effort was made to doctor
the sick. Once the fever or the dys-
entery became so violent that the sui.
feFer could no longer march he was
tossed into one OF the provision wag-
ons, where he jolted along till the last
breath was shaken out Of him.
1t was not until the middle of
August that our slow journey brought
us to Tomsk. There we got a weeks
rest. Then we we're broken up into
gangs Of twenty or thirty, usually
three fourths men. and sent in differ
ent directions. OF the life that fol-
loved | can give you but a faint out
line, as a circumStantial account Of it
would require a volume.
THERE ARE TWO CLASSES OF EN-
PLOYMENT
for an exile to Siberia, which NAV be
defined as labor above and below the
ground. That above ground is stone
breaking, road-making, work in the
quarries and on the government es-
tates, and labor for the colonists,
themselves %exiles, but Of some means.
Lesser offenders are employed at this.
For the others are the mines.
That is to say, slow death. Prince
Lubomirski, the author Of The Ex
lies, is the only litterateur who has
ever laid bare the infamy Of these un-
derground bells to the world. Even
he has not done them justice, though
ne has written with m~agni6cen indig
nation of their horrors. But let me
endeayor to give you and your readers
some idea Of them here.
The chief quicksilver mines Of
Siberia are situated in the Ural Noun
tains. They are worked By the worst
and most heinOus OF the conYiets. that
is to say, by criminals whose misdeeds
are blood-eurdling, and BY political
prisoners whose views are particularly
inimieal to Russian official politics.
The Russian papers declare that no
women are employed in the quicksil-
yer mines.
THAT Is A LIE.
Women are working and rotting to
pieces by inches there, in scores. All
the Nihilist women sentenced TO hard
labor in Siberia are now pu%trefying in
those mines. Hard labor means the
mines to men and women alike. Il Il
The same as a death sentence only the
halter and the AK kill quickly. while
Siberia hard labor takes five or six
years 20 torture its victim into a sail
waited grave. | speak by the card. |
have toiled in the Lake Baikal mines.
four years ago | worked in a bit
aud never saw the sunlight. / worked
and slept as many other women worked
and slept, six hundred feet under
ground. Separated in small parties.
we toiled by day, picking and sitting
the ore which the picks Of the men
mined out. At night we slept on
heaps Of damp straw, in caves hol.
lowed out by the miners. Patrols of
soldiers went up and down the gal
leries Of the mine necessarily. and
woe befall the nan or woman who was
found idle. The lash or the rod was
their portion.
STIRRING US TO WORK.
In that dreadful section, where
the horrors Of the quicksilver pits
burrow deep IN the frozen earth. Win.
ter is nine months long. For weeks
The days are only five hours in length.
But what mattered it to US. Even in
the hight Of the brief midsummer no
warm breath Of the sun reached US.
The same wet, frosted chill air blow I'm
the long galleries Of the mines. The
same Icy water streamed down from