The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-01-26
A SLOW AND TERRIBLE TORTURE.
The Privations to Which Prisoners En- Route
to Siberia Are Subjected.

| journey mas Deeu reduced by O1le-ndI, ana UIley
begin their peregrinations in Siberia in special
carriages. NJ Maximoff has very wildly des-
cribed how the convicts at Irkutsk, to whose
judgment such moving machine was submit
ted, declared at once that it was the most stupid
vehicle that could be invented for the torment of
both horses and convicts. Such carriages,
which have no accommodation for deadening the
shocks, moves slowly on the rugged, jolting
road ploughed over and over by thousands of
/ heavily loaded cars In western Siberia,
amidst the marshes on the eastern slope of the
| Urai, the journey becomes true torture, as the
highway is covered with loose beams of wood,
which recall the sensation experienced when
a hnger is dragged across the keys of a piano,
the black keys included The journey is hard,
even for the traveller who is lying thick
felt mattress, in a comfortable tarentass, and it
is easy to conceive what the convict expert
ences, who is bound to sit motionless for eight
or ten hours on the bench of the famous vehicle,
having but a few rags to shelter him from snow
and rain.
| Happily enough, this journey lasts but few
! days, as at Tumen the exiles embarked
! on special barges, or floating prisons, taken
in tow by steamers, and in the space of eight
or ten days, are brought to Tomsk. The con-
! Wet barges usually so overcrowded, and
are usually kept in such state of flthiness
| that they have become real nests of infection
| Each barge has been built for the transport of
500 convicts and the convoy" wrote the
4
| on Nov. 10, 1881 '"rhe calculation of the size
| of the barges has not been made, however, ac-
cording to the necessary cubical space but accord
ing to the interests of the owners of the steamer
| MN. Kurbatof and Ignatoff. These gentlemen
! occupy for their own purposes two compartments
| for hundred men each, and thus eight hun
| bred must take the room destined for six hun
! dred. The ventilation is very bad, there being
no accommodation at all for that purpose, and
| the cabinets of an unimaginable nastiness"
He adds that the mortality on these barges IS
very great, especially among the children, and
| his information is fully confirmed by official
figures published last year in all newspapers. 1t
| appears from these figures that eight to ten per
cent of the convict passengers died during their
ten days journey on board these barges; that IS
| something like sixty eighty out of eight hun
! bred.
Here you see, wrote friends of ours who have
made this passage, 1.-THE reign of death. Diph-
liberia and typhus pitilessly cut down the lives
| OF adults and children especially these last.
| Corpses of children thrown out nearly at
each station. The hospital, placed under the
supervision of an ignorant soldier, is always
| overcrowded"
AT Tomsk the convicts stop for a few days. 1t
is easy to conceive what hell the Tomsk prison
| becomes when the convicts arriving every week
! cannot be sent on to Irkutsk with the same
speed, on account of foundations, or obstacles on
the rivers. The prison was built to contain 900
souls but it never holds less than 1,300 to 400,
| and very often 2 200 or more One-quarter of
the prisoners SICK but the infrmary can
| SlelIeF OF SO, OF IHOSe WHO are III
need of it, and so the sick remain III the same
rooms, upon or beneath the same
| platforms where the remainder crammed
! to the amount of three men for each free place.
! The shrieks of the sick, the cries of the fever
stricken PATIENTS and the rattle of the dying mix
together with the jokes and laughter of the pris-
| oners, with the curses of the warders. The eX-
| halations of this human heap mix with those of
their wet and filthy clothes, and with the emana-
| lions of the horrible Parasha. you are suifo-
Gated as you enter the room, you are fainting
| and must run back to breathe some fresh air;
! you must accustom yourself by and by to the
| horrible emanations which float like fog in the
| river'-such is the testimony OF all those who
| have entered unexpectedly a Siberian prison.
| The families room" is still more horrible.
| Here you see, says a Siberian official in charge
of the prsons-M Mishlo-'hundreds of women
and children closely packed together, in such
state OF misery as no Imagination could picture
The families of the convicts receive cloth from
| the state Mostly peasant women, who, as rule,
never have more than one dress at once; mostly
| reduced to starvation soon as their husbands
were taken into custody, they have buckled on
| their sole cloth when starting from Arkhangelsk
| or Astrakhan, and after their long pereg11na-
tiOns from one lookup to another, after the long
| years of preliminary detention and months of
journey, only rags have remained on their Shout
ders from their weather-worn clothes. The
naked emaciated body and the wounded feet
appear from beneath the battered clothes as
| they are sitting on the nasty floor eating the
hard black bread received from compassionate
pcdSdlluS ANU tllS HlONlHS utdp Oh 4umul
beings who cover each square foot of the plat
! forms and beneath them you perceive the dying
| child on the knees of his mother, and close by,
the newborn baby The baby is the delight of,
the consolation of these women, each of whom
| surely has more human feelings than any of the
| chiefs and warders. 1t is passed from hand to
hand; the best rags are parted with to cover its
shivering limbs the tenderest caresses are for it.
How many have grown up in this
| way! One of them stands by my
side as write these lines, and repeats to me the
stories she had heard so many times from her
mother about the humanity of the ''scelerates"
| and the infamy of their 'chiefs." She describes
| to me the toys that the convicts made for her
during the interminable journey-plain toys in
spired by a good -hearted humor and side by
side, the miserable proceedings, the exaction of
money, the curses and blows, the whistling of
the whips of the chiefs
The prison, however, is cleared by and by, as
| the parties of convicts start to continue their
| journey. When the season and the state of the
rivers permit it, parties of 800 convicts each,
| with women and children, leave the Tomsk
prison every week. and begin their foot journey
to Irkutsk and Transbaikalia. A track, marked
all along by poles to distinguish it from the sur
rounding plain, ploughed and rugged by the
passage of thousands of cars, covered with
ruts that break down the hardest wheels,
runs through the naked plain In front
| row of soldiers opens the march. Behind them,
heavily advance the hard-labor convicts, with
half-shaved heads, wearing gray clothes, with
yellow diamond on the back and open shoes,
worn out by the long journey, and exhibiting
the tatters in which the wounded feet are
wrapped. Each convict wears a chain, riveted
to his ankles, its rings being twisted into rags
| if the convict has collected enough of aims
during his journey to pay the blacksmith for
rivetng it looser on his feet The chain goes up
each foot and is suspended to girdle. Another
chain closely ties both hands, and third chain
binds together six or eight convicts. Every false
movement of any of the pack is felt by all his
chaincompanions; the feebler is dragged for
ward by the stronger, and he must not stop;
the way-the etape-is long, and the autumn
day is short
Soldiers accompany the party on both sides,
meditating, perhaps the order given at the de
parture; IF one of them runs away shoot him
| down IL he is killed five rnbes Of reward for