The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1885-09-18
A RUSSIAN PRISON.

The fortress of st. Peter and st. Paul
is huge, hideous and slabsided, and sur
mounted by thin and tapering spire
that looks like the end of Brobding-
nagian syringe. The fortress is in the
centre of the city, and faces the i'm
perial palace. During the day it is in
part public thorough fare, and people
pass through narrow detile of gloomy
and tortuous vaults, where heavily
armed sentinels march to and fro, and
stone slabs in inches hold aloft burning
tapcrs. But at nightfall all is closed,
and when darkness covers the capital
and the quays of the Neva are all aglow
with gaslights, the prison here dedicated
TO st. Peter and St. Paul remains
shrouded in gloom like some huge NAV,
ever ready to swal ow mp all that is best
and noblest Of the unhappy hand which
it curses with its presence. During the
last twenty years thousands have entered
its gloomy portals, and as fast as they
perish or depart the great army of mis-
CRADLES is reinforced by fresh victims.
Most of them only remain for time,
either pending Their trial or until they
are removed to d central prison or de-
ported to Siberia. Bat there are some
whose fate is ST. more terrible. There
are prisoners who have never been tried
and never will be-men and women
who are kept in prison generally for
years, often for life, simply by order of
the Gar. In one easement, dying of
consumption, is a woman whose Identity
is us great mystery as the imam in the
iron mask" Neither her jailers nor her
fellow prisoners know either her name
nor the nature of her crime. She is
number, and nothing more. What
terrible tragedy must be hidden in that
woman's heart, if it still beats! The
casemates are cells five PAGES long and
three wide, equal to about seven and
half feet-dens into which little light
struggles through a strongly barred slit.
The walls steam with moisture. For
furniture the inllabitant has II straw mat
tress and a thin quit, jug, the image of
a saint, and Il pail which serves for all
purposes and remains there day and
night. The prisoners are never allowed
to communicate with each other, nor to
exchange word with their jailers.
Once day the door is opened, and the
w;trdens signify to the inhabitant by a
gesture that it Is the hour for exercise.
Silently he rises from his little bed and
follows his cust,dians into narrow yard
so hemmed in by high walls as to seem
like the bottom OF q well. Here lie
PAGES to and fro for the allotted time
like wild beast i'll a cagr, and is then
led back to his den as silently as he was
brought out. The prison is full of peo-
pie, yet for every inhabitant of its case
mates, its b;sstons, its ravelins and its
curtains there is the isolation of death.
No books are allowed IN this dismal
solitude, not even the Bible. If pris-
oner wants religious consolation he may
look at his saint and raise his thoughts
uSdFeuWdiu, Ii Ic CiAll. IL 10 III WOuueL
that men immured in these dark places
sometimes go mad. For clothing, the
prisoners have the gray press OF COM
mon malfactors. Instead of shoes and
stockings, their feet are wrapped in rags.
Even in tine depth OF winter the cells are
seldom warmed, never sufficiently ; at
least. the fuel assigned for the purpose
is insufficient and embezzled at that
Hence the cells are always damp.
Water streams down the walls and freezes
in pools on the floor. So intense is the
cold that when the director makes his
rounds he never takes OF his fur cloak,
and shivers even uh, n.