Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1885-04-19
BOUND FOR SIBERIA.
TRANSFER OF POLITICAL PRISONERS
At THE MOSCOW STATION.
Terrible Condition of the Victims Of
Solitary Confinement-Lot Of the
RsfOrmers Of Alexander's lis
keign-NOvO BelgorOd.
london Cor. San Francisco Chronicle.l

london Cor San Francisco Chroncle.l
l shall now describe from the evidence
OF an eyewitness, as given in a late number
Of The Narodnaia VIOLA Vestnik, a revolu-
tionary Journal printed at Geneva for clan
destine circulation in Russia, the arrival Of
some of the unfortunates in question at Mos
cow, on their way to the wilds Of Siberia,
there to spend the rest of their lives, for not
one convict in 10000 is allowed to return
from that remote and inhospitable land.
Probably that is too high proportion.
Only the few who have powerful friends at
court and the sincerity Of whose penitence
is attested by the police are called back. To
win the favor of the police prisoner or an
exile must betray friends and reveal secrets,
and to obtain a remission of sentence the
case must be brought personally before the
cZar-conditions which can rarely be full
filled.
The time is early morning. July 26 Of the
year 1888. A train from st. Petersburg has
just entered the Moscow station and the
whisper passes from mouth to mouth that it
brings a convoy Of prisoners bound for ST.
IBERIA, for news Of its coming had by some
means got bruIted abroad and several of
the onlookers have gone thither in the hope
OF getting one last glimpse of friend or a
kinsman before he is lost to them forever
The officials do their utmost to transfer the
convicts from the St Petersburg train to
the north train without attracting atten
tion. But the attempt fails, for several of
them are in such state that they walk with
difficulty, and have TO be supported on either
side; Others are utterly helpless-they can
not walk at all Stretchers are sent 1or
but these proving too large to enter the cars,
the invalids have to be carried from one
train to another on mems backs
First among them is Iguenat Voloschenko
sentenced to ten years hard labor for the
part he took in the Arsinsky affair, and fif-
teen in addition for attempting to escape
He has passed q year in the fortress of St
Peter and st Paul and is now only just
alive. His aspect is that of corpse, his
body is almost putrid with scurvy and he
writhes in continued convulsions Next
comes Alexander Pubileff. Although he
does not suffer from scurvy, bad food
and the nervous prostration begotten
Of solitary confinement have reduced him to
such a condition that he has lost the use of
his limbs and he faints at the slightest move
ment After him Fomin-once an officer in
the army, now under sentence of penal ser
NASuAC toA ihc~Eo ouI Ile Is utt6Tly
unconscious and seemingly dead, and it Is
only after various remedies have been ap-
piled that he is able, toward evening, to con-
tinue his journey.
Another, IL possible, still more unfortunate,
Is Paul Yellow, young man hardly q years
old, tall Of stature and once OF powerful
physique. Twelve months in the fortress
have reduced him to shadow of his former
Salf "a 10 hont Honhlo md nf
being paralyzed, he is unable to walk He
is, besides, terribly afflicted with scurvy,
and his face is smeared with the blood which
ooDes continually from his mouth and
gums His destination and that of
Tatiana Lebedevna is Kara, but it is
hardly possible that either of them
can reach that place alive Tatiana
Lebedevna. like Fomin, is under sentence Of
hard labor for her natural life--a life, how
ever, which in the nature of things cannot
last much longer; a few hours, or,
at most, few days. She is literally eaten
up by the scurvy. Her gums have disap-
peared and a part of the jawbones are strip
ped of their flesh. Her face is that of
skeleton and her frail body is torn with
consumptive cough. Only this cough and
her large, dark and still brilliant black eyes
show that she yet lives Such are the re-
suits Of confin ement in the fortress If St
Peter and ST. Paul, prison in the center Of
Russian civilization, and in which the czar,
who Is nothing il not religious, has con-
tinually his eye What, then, n ust be the
horrors perpetrated in other and remote
prisons-for instance in the fortress of
Schlusseburg, situated on the shores of the
Silent ssa and lately transformed into a vast
political prison'
The lot Of the reformers who were sen
fenced daring the reign of Alexander II is. in
no respect more tolerable than that Of the
revolutionists who are now in bonds. / use
the term reformers advisedly, for they are
men who sought to attain their ends by pa.
cific means-by writing and speaking. They
neither took part in any revolutionary move
ment nor were their hands stained with one
drop of blood. They were the predecessors
af the party Of action and Of the terrorists
II the popular Will" But the government,
as if they desired to force every body who Is
in any way dissatisfied with the existing
state of things to join the revolutionary
ranks, treats all alike, and deals the
same measure to the mildest reform
ers as to the widest terrorists Many
of the men sentenced for sedition in the last
reign are confined in the prison of Novo Bel
gorod, and their life is described in the
number Of The Vestnik which / have al
ready mentioned.
The system pursued in this prison is
strictly cellular, the cells being almost the
double Of those Of St Peter and St Paul
little chambers five PAGES long and two
and q half wide; furniture, wooden
bed, a small table, a three-legged stool and
the eternal and odoriferous pail. In these
holes men whose sole offense is devotion to
their country, are doomed to pass long
years Of their lives. Here Plotnikoff and
several others, sentenced at the same time,
were incarcerated for ten years. Mischkine,
more fortunate, was kept only eight years.
To describe the manifold terrors Of this in
ferno, as set forth in this prisoners letter, |
would take un too much Snaca