Morning journal and courier., 1883-11-23
The Russian Nemesis in Siberia.

A dispatch says that great disorder pre- vails in the penal colonies of Siberia, towing | to official corruption" Probably the cor l ruptien may have been an immediate irri-
 tant but the main cause is found in the con- | vict coIonists Recent travellers in Siberia
 have told of the growth of that vast region, l more especially in it's southern portion. The deportation of political offenders especially
 has, during the past ten years, been SO great that it has been impossible to prevent the growth of a civilization which is hostile at heart to czarism. The nihilists who have | been sent there and have gone during the
 past ten years by the scores of thousands | have been, as 8 rule, of the best educated | and most inteligently related class, especial | ly in social sense. Their relatives have been able to save them from fortress dun | geons, or from death under the knout. This ! dreaded third section has sent into the penal
 colonies of Siberia many thousands who were
 arrested secretly and without warrant, who ! are held without charge, and most of whom | are known officially not by names but by l numbers It is an open secret that here is 8 | propaganda and association at work which | has extensive ramifcations touching both | San Francisco and New York, as well as | reaching into British India and Europe also In the city of San Francisco there is small ! colony of distinguished Poles and Russians | whose reticence as to their immediate past is quite marked. All along the Pacific coast AAO III mo44CO GQ0rS may DC 1OuQQ oCucat0Q Russians, not many in the aggregate per haps, but enough to distinguish them as 8 so- cial factor. There are rumors of 8 mysteri- ous yacht, which clears occasionally from San Francisco or Portland for Pacific voy- age, and this may explain the following in | the most recent dispatch: "A large number of exiles made an attempt to escape, but were recapturad, except those who fled from 1 the island of Ssghalien." The island lies | north of Japan with the Yellow sea between. It faces Siberia and has Manohoria and Kamschatka at it's northern and southern ex-
 tremities. Saghalien is long, narrow is- land with a bold, rocky shore looking out on
 the Pacific. The strait between it and the
 continent is from fifty to one hundred miles wide. Until within 8 few years Saghalien was claimed by both Japan and Russia, and jurisdiction was shared between the two
 countries. Finally the question was sub- mltted to an arbitration and decided against Japan. Russia, after taking full possession, l turned the island into penal colony for ni-
 hilists. Only the most important and for midable were shipped there They are sent in Russian men-of-wsr, being generally kept
 between decks, locked in iron cages, the cages chained to the deck. The first cargoes
 were sent during the heated term and the
 route chosen is always the mid tropical one of the Mediterranean, Suez canal, Red sea, Indian ocean, the Straits of Sunda and the
 Chinese and Yellow seas. An American na-
 val ofhcer was three years since, at Slnga-
 pore admitted to one of these vessels. He
 saw the living cargo. There had been three
 hundred when the frigate sailed from Cron-
 stadt; at Singapore there were less than two
 hundred remaining. In answer to a remark
 8 Russian officer said it.would be as we'll for
 the poor wretches if none of them were Iiv-
 ing on arrival at Saghalien. The escape
 chronicled in the cablegram is. then, evi-
 dently of importance. The horrors of Rus
 sian czarism will never be known, but there
 are still loopholes from which we get a
 glimpse within. SaRhalien is one of them.