Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1879-10-23
Russian Prison Horrors.
NahiEstic Stoicisme-A Horrible !Su;-
cide-A Lady's Story Of her
Wrongs and Suferings.

The st. Petersburg correspond
ent of the London Daily Telegraph
writes under date of the 21st OF
September:
/ In the extraordinary death-bed
notes of the Russian colonial agent
who committed suicide in Jhitomir
by slowly burning his spine, re-
ference was made to a man who
had some short time previous to
that awful tragedy burned himself
to death in Odessa under peculiar
lly appalling circumstances. As
the self-murderer alluded to was a
nihilist of some local notoriety, who
had been apprehended by the Rus
sian police, and was lying in Jail
awaiting trial, his suicide has been
regarded in this country as politi-
cal incident of no small Importance
as exemplifying the stern stoicism
which would appear to character
ize the leaders of the revolutionary
movement. Several, indeed, have
exhibited the most undoubted
heroism at the very foot of the gall
lows, meeting their death with per,
feet calmness--even, in one or two
cases, with obviously unaffected
cheerfulness. Itappears that Serge
Somof, an ex- student of the Odes-
sa University, had been imprisoned
for many months in the Jail of that
city, the case against him being
incomplete, and that the cell ne
was confined in (already in filthy
state when he entered it) had never
been cleansed during his tenancy.
The accumulations of refuse and
nameless denominations with which
its paved floor was wholly covered
gave out so vile All effiuvium that
he had complained for some timo
before his suicide of suffocation,
resulting in giddiness and fainting
fits, and had repeatedly irnplored
the prison officials visiting his cell
to hasten on his trial, as the tor
lures he was enduring in the mep-
hitic atmosphere of his dungeon
were absolutely un5carablc. The
governor of the Jail, irritated by
his daily reiterated opportunities,
caused corporal punishment to be
inflicted upon Somof with terrible
severity, and ordered that his hands
should be tied behind his back with
a stout rope, in which condition he
was left alone in his cell, stretched
out upon the sloping boards that
constituted his only sleeping place
Thus abandoned to his miserable
lot, bound, smarting from a severe
fiogging, and utterly desperate, be
struggled into a sitting position on
his plank, contrived to seize with
his teeth the petroleum lamp stand
ing on bracket above his head,
bit through the glass we'll contain
ing the petroleum, which caught
fire from the still burning flame of
the lamp and allowed the lighted
liquid to stream down over his
body setting his prison rags on fire.
Then he lay down again and suffer-
ed the agony Of burning without a
cry or a groan. Presently the
stencil of his scorching flesh made
its way through the crevices of his
cell door into the corridor, where a
sentry was stationed, who gave the
alarm, and the turnkey, upon open>
ing the door, beheld the unfortunate
prisoner enwrapped in a fiery
shroud of lambent fame, Pickering
dimly amidst the clouds of thick
and acrid smoke with which the
dungeon was filled. Somoft utter
ed no sound even when help ap-
preached him, but regarded his
t-------.--~ -'i-'- ~.~--aL -, UUruIJ
resentful gaze. The surface of his
body was already carbonized but
he lived for three hours and half
after the flames consuming him
had been extinguished, and ans
wered all the questions put to him
with immovabie calm and compos-
ure. He stated that he should
have been content to submit to the
sentence of any legal tribunal and
20 pay for his political convictions
with his life if condemned to death
in the usual manner but that he
had been unable to endure the
huniliating and inhuman torturee
which had been inflicted upon him
by his jailers.
TERRIBLE STORY.
Another terrible narrative of tho
atrocities perpetrated by the Rus
sian police authorities under cover
of the estate of siege" has jus
reached us from Geneva, where ,
journal is published in the Russia,
! language, called the ObscAtschej
DjeIo, and edited by Michael Ora
gomanow, an ex-professor of tb
Kew University, This paper, al
!, though inscribed in the Russia
: Index Expur"a+orius, finds its wa