The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1885-05-14
BOUND FOR SIBERIA.
TRANSFER or POLITICAL PRISONERS
At THE MOSCOW STATION.
Terrible Condition Of the Victims al
SOLITARY Confimcmenf-IOt Or the
Rcsnrmers Of Alexandcrss lis
Rcign-Novo lSelgorotl.

s5opstesy &Ouuuebueul-1/Ot Oh the
lscsor'ners Of Alcxander's rs
Reign-Novo BeIgorosI.
London Cor. San Francisco Chronic,e.1
shall now describe from tho evidence
Of an eyewitness, as given in late number
OF The Narodnaia VIOLA Vestnik, q reyolu-
tionary journal printed at Geneva for CLAN
lestine circulation in Russia, the arrival Of
some Of tho unfortunates in question at Mos.
COW, on their way to the wilds Of Siberia,
tLcrc to spend the rest Of their lives, for not
one convict in 10000 Is allowed to return
from that remote and inhospitab,e land.
Probably that is too high q proportion.
Only the Few who have powerful friends at
court and the sincerity Of whose pcnitence
is attested by the police are called lack. To
win tie 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 tue
czar-conditions which can rarely be full
filed.
The time is early morning, July 90 Of the
year 1883. A train from st. Petersburg has
just entered the Moscow station and the
whisper passes from mouth to mouth that it
brings convoy Of prisoners bound for 81
beria, for news Of its coming had by some
means got hrulted abroad and several of
tue onlookers have gone thither in the hope
Of getting one last glimpse of friend or a
kinsnian before no is lost to them forever.
Tho officials do their utmost to transfer the
convicts from the st. Petersburg train to
the north train without attracting atten.
tor. 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 arc utterly helplGss--theI can
not walk Mt all. Stretchers are sent for,
but these proving too large to enter the cars,
the invalids have to 10 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 A.sinsky affair, and fif-
teen In addition for attempting to escape
He has passed a 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 commissions. 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 q condition that he has lost the use of
his limbs and he faints at tho slightest move
Hnent After him Fomin--once an officer in
tho army, now under sentence OF penal ser.
vitude for lifo-is brought out. He is utterly
unconscious and seemingly dead, and it Is
only after various remedies have been ap-
piled that hepis able, toward evening, to con-
tinue his journey.
Another. il possible, still more unfortunate,
Is Paul Yellow, young man hardly % years
old, tall Of stature and oncs OF powerful
physique. Twelve months in tho fortress
have reduced MIN to 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 scnrvy,
and bis face Is smeared with the blood which
Oozes continually from his mouth ana
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 Fom;n, is under sentence OF
hard labor for her natural life--a life, how
ever, which in the nature of things cannot
last much longer; few hours, or,
at most, q few days. She is literally eaten
up by the scuryy. Her gums have disap-
psared 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 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 be tho
horrors perpetrated in other and remote
prisons-for instance in the fortress Of
ofo1 f1,o oh. r,f
Silent sea and lately transformed into vast
political prison?
The lot Of the reformers who were sen
fenced during the reign of Alexander II is in
no respect more tolerable than that of the
revolutionists who are now in bonds. Iuse
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 bload. They were the predecessors
of the party of action and Of the terrorists
OF the Popular Will" But the government,
as if they desired to force everybody who is
In any way dissatisfied with the existing
state of things to join the revolutionary
ranks, treats all alike, and deals tho
same measure to the mildest reform
ers ~ to the widest teFrorists, Many
OF the mon sentenced for seiition in the last
reign are confined in the prison of Novo Bal
gorod, and their life is described in tho
number Of The Vestnik which I have al
ready mentioned.
The system pursued in this prison i
strictly cellular. the cells being almost the
double Of those of st Peter and ST. Paul
little chsn,bers five PAGES long and two
and q half wide; furniture, wooden
bed, small table, q three-legged stool and
the eternal and odoriferous pail. In these
holes men whoss sole offense is devotion to
their scountry, are doomed to pass long
years of their lives Hero PlotnikoY an
several others, ssntsncpl at the same time
were incarcerated for ten years: Mischkinc,
more fortunate, was kept only eight years.
To describe the manifold terrors Of this in
ferno, IS set forth in this prisoners letter,