Daily Yellowstone journal., 1885-04-18
BOUND FOR SIBERIA.
TRANSFER OF POLITICAL PRISONERS
AT The MOSCOW STATION
Ter dble Condition of the Victims Of
Solitary Con OF the
keformers Of Alexander's lis
Reign-Noyo Belgoro1.
nondou Cor. San Francisco chrouicle.l

1ondou Cor San Francisco Chronice.l
1 shall now describe from the evidence
of an eyewitness, as given in a late number
OF The Narodnaia VIOLA Vestnik, a reyolu-
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 a proportion.
Only the few who have powerful friends at
court and the sincerity Of whose penitence
Is attested by the police are called hack. To
win the favor Of the police prisoner or an
exile must betray friends and reveal secrets,
and TO obtain 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 20 of the
year 1888. A train from St Petersburg has
just entersd the Moscow station and the
whisper passes from mouth TO mouth that It
brings convoy Of prisoners bound for 81
IBERIA, for news Of it, coming had by some
means got hruited abroad and several OF
the onlookers have gone thither in the hope
Of getting one last GLIMPSE of friend or u
kinsman before he Is lost to them forever.
The officials do their utmost 10 transfer the
convicts from the St Petersburg train 70
the north train without attracting atten'
ton But the attempt fails, for several OF
them are in such a state that they walk with
difficulty, and have 90 be supported on either
side; others are utterly helpless-they can
not walk at all Stretches are sent for,
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 i lguenat Voloschenko,
sentenced 10 ten year hard labor for the
part ne took in the Arsinsky affair, and fii-
teen In addition for attempting o. escape.
He has pissed a Yea IN the fortress Of st
Peter and ST. Pau AM is naw only just
alive. his aspect Is that Of a corpse, his
body is almost putrii with scuTvy and he
writhes in contiaued COMMISSIONS Next
comes Alexander Pubileff. Although he
doe, not suffer from scurvy, bad food
aud the nervous prostration begotten
ofsolitary confinement have reduced him 10
such a condition that he has lost the use Of
his limbs and he faints at the slightest move
iment After him Fomin-once an officer in
the army, now under sentence Of penal SER
vitude for life-is brought cut He is utterly
unconscious and seemingly dead, and it Is
only after various remedies have been ap-
piled that he Is able, toward evening, to con-
time his journey
Another, npossible, still more unfortunate,
Is Paul Yellow, young man hardly 81 years
old. tall Of stature and ones of powerful
physique. Twelve months in the fortress
have reduced MIN 10 a shadow of his former
self He is bent double, and one OF his legs
being paralyzed. he is unable to walk. He
Is, besides, terribly afflicted with scurvy,
and his face is smeared with the blood which
oozes 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 Fomn, is under sentence OF
hard lator for her natural hfe--a life, how
ever, which in the nature of things cannot
last much longer; a few hours, or,
at most, a few days. She is literally eaten
up by the scurvy. Her gums have di>ap-
peared and part Of the jawbones are strip
ped Of their flesh. Her face is that of
skeleton and her frail body l. torn with a
consumptive cough. Only this cough and
her large. dark aud still brilliant black eyes
show that she yet lives Such are the re-
suits Of confin ement in the fortress of St
Peter and ST Paul prison in the center Of
Russian civilization and in which the car,
who is nothing II not religious, has con
tinually his eye. What. then must bo the
horrors perpetrated in other and remote
misons-fUr instance in the fortress, of
Schlusseburg. situated on the shores Of the
Silent sea and lately transformed into vast
political prisoni
The lot Of the retormsrs who were sen
fenced during the reign OF Alexander ii Is in
no respect more tolerable than that Of the
rsvolutionists who are now in bonds. Iuse
the term reformes advisedy, for they are
men who sought TO attain thor ends by pa-
eific msans-by writing and speaking They
neither took part in any revolutionary move
ment nor were their hands staine with one
drop Of blood. They were the predecessors
Of the pnrty Of action and Of the terrorists
Of the Popular VIII" But the government
rs II they desired 10 force every body who is
IN any way dissatisfied with the existing
state Of things 20 join the revolutionary
ranks. treats all alike, and deals the
SAM measure 10 the mildest reform
ers as 10 the widest terrorists Many
OF the men sentenced for selition In the last
neign are confined in the prison OF Novo Bel.
gorOd, AMI their life l. described in the
Bamber II Tue Vestnik which I have al.
ready mentioned.
Tue system pursued in this prison Is
siriIty cellular, the cells being almost the
d-uble Of those OF st. Peter ami st. Paul.
BLIle chambers five PAGES long and two
aud a half wide; furniture, wooden
Led, a small table, three-legged stool aud
me eternal and odoriferous pail In these
holes men whoss sole offense is devotion ~
their country, are doomsd to pass long
years Of their lives. Here Plotnikoff aul
several others, sentencel at the same time,
were lncarcerated Tor ten year. Nj chkine,
more fortunate, was kept only eight year,
t. describe the manifold terror, VI this IN
fern, a. 20 Iorth in this prisoners letter,
would taks up too much space.
A Much Needed Comma.
IENchanRe1