Connecticut western news., 1881-07-27
RUSSIAN PRISON HORRORS.
An Omcer who Did his Duty too
 Faithfully.


 Faithfully.
 There can be little hope of Russia's internal peace until the open and we'll proved outrages which are perpetrated upon the populace are either voluntarily renounced and punished, or those guilty of such cruelties are overthrown.
 An Imperial State Attorney has just been suspended from his office for his faithfulness and conscientiousness in carrying out his instructions to report upon the practices of the imperial courts in the Province of Oldenburg. It was pretended that he retired at his own request. His answer was the publica- tion of his report in newspaper which was afterward suspended for the offense. During his four months sojourn in Orenburg his doors were crowded from morning until midnight with suppliants for reform and justice; for protection from the judges and the police. His ears were filled with the groans and sighs of the injured. He liberated in- nocent persons who for years had been imprisoned and secretly tortured-wo- men whose flesh had, for the crime of interceding with the Chief of Police in behalf of their husba nds, been pinched with red-hot tongs; others dying pre- maturely in loathsome dens, or coming out crippled for life. Others clothed in few rotten rags, ''groveling in hide ous caverns, the roofs of which threat. ened to fall in upon them at any mo- ment, whilst the walls, lined by damp with thick layer of chimney fungus where they were not crusted with the dirt of ages, were only kept standing at all by wooden supports. The confined atmosphere, poisoned by exhalations from every sort of abomination, abso- lutely stopped the breath, so rank and fetid was it. In the infirmaries there were never more than five or six bed steads, and the majority of the sick were compelled to gro8el on the bare and dirty boards of the flooring, often amongst the corpses of their dead fellow sufferers"
 One prisoner under the very eyes of a committee appointed to inspect the prisons, came into court with shirt and drawers so tattered that they did not cover his nakedness, and so becrusted with dirt that their color was that of dark iron rust.
 The warden of one jail, who had been expelled from the police for bribe-tak- ing, ordered all the prisoners outside of the town gates and hammered them to death. They were logged until they lost consciousness; water poured over them till they came to themselves knocked about with whatever came to hand-belt-buckles, prison keys, iron chains and butt ends of rifles, until the ground was stained with blood, like the floor of shambles.
 For using the familiar ''thou," in- stead of ''you," toward the iait officials, the delinquents were tied to a horses tail, and logged with thorny rods steeped in 8 solution of salt, receiving from thirty-five to one hundred and twenty-five blows. The surgeons ap- pointed to report cases of shamming weakness or sickness would include those fainting from these cruel fog. gings.
 In endeavoring to reform these abuses the attorney was persecuted by the off, cials who finally succeeded in procuring his dismissal.
 Nor are such as these the only abuses. The habit is prevalent in all depart ments. A few weeks ago navy officer struck sailor for some trifing offence so violently that he died, but no notice has been taken of it. An admiral in | the Adriatic with an annual income of | $12, ,OO0, keeps his family on board ship | in order to avoid the expense of living | on shore. He has, in consequence, for bidden the sailors to bathe, which in the temperature of the Mediterranean regions, IS absolutely necessary to their health and comfort. The regulations of the navy absolutely prohibit striking a sailor or encumbering national ships | with officers families. But by charging any informers or accusers of such of- | fences with ''nihilism" or "disloyalty" 1 the offenders can easily stave off in- quiry.
 In the very nature of the case the day must come, though it will perhaps be distant one, when enlightenment will open the eyes of the masses to the abuses they suffer. All these outrages will be recalled and form part of the tremendous indictment that this people l will bring against it's rulers.
 The United States Navy.
 An article In the North American