Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-07-28
PENAL SERVITUDE.
THE STORY A CONDEMNED MAN
TOLD AN AMERICAN.
The Miseries of Prolonged Imprisonment
in Siberian Dunseon-The Growing
Fear of Insanity-Loss of Self-ContrOl.
SCurNX-SuiCide.

! Fear of Insanity-Loss of Self-ContrOl.
Scurvy-Suicide.
You cannot imagine the misery of pro-
| longed confinement in q casemate of the
fortress under what are known as dungeon
conditions (kartsernoi polozhenie). My case
mate was sometimes cold, generally damp,
and always gloomy. Day after day, week
| after week. and month after month, | lay
there in solitude, hearing no sound save that
! of the high pitched, melancholy bells of the
fortress cathedral, which slowly chimed the
quarter hours, and which always seemed to
me to half arJiculate the words, ''Tee zdais
! seedesh-ee seedee tee Here thou liest-le
here stilD. | had absolutely nothing to do
except to pace my cell from corner to corner
and think. For long time usp1 to talk to
myself in whisper; to repeat softly every
/ thing in the shape of literature that could
remember, and to compose speeches. which,
under certain imagined conditions, | would
! deliver; but | finally ceased to have energy
enough to do even this, and used to sit for
hours in a sort of stupor, in which, SO far as
can now remember, l was not conscious of
thinking at all.
WEAK MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY
Before the end of the first year | grew so
weak mentally and physically that l began
TO forget words | knew what ideas | de-
sired to express, but some of the words that
needed had gone from me, and it was with
the greatest difficulty that | could recover
them. 1t seemed sometimes as if my own
language We're a strange one to me, one
which, from long disuSe, | had forgotten.
| greatly feared insanity, and my appre
hension was increased by the fact that two
or three of my comrades in cells on the same
corridor were either insane or subject TO hal
luClnatlonS; and | was often reused at night
and thrown into a violent chill of nervous
excitement by their hysterical weeping, their
cries to the guard to come and take away
somebody, or something, which they i'm
| agined they saw, or their groans and en-
treaties when, in cases of violent delirium,
they were strapped to their beds by the
gendarmes My inability to so what was
happening in the cells from which these
groans, cries and sounds of violence came
gave full play, of course, to my magma
ton, and thus increased my nervous excite
ment, until was on the verge of mysteries
myself
Several times, when l feared that | was
losing all self control, | summoned the fort
reSS surgeon, or the ''feldsher,n who merely
gave me dose of bromide of potassium and
told me that | must not excite myself so;
that nothing serious had happened; that two
or three of the prisoners were sick and deliri-
GUS; but that there was nothing to be
alarmed about As the fortress contained no
hospital, insane and delirious patients were
treated in their cells, and were rarely re-
moved to an asylum unless they were mani
testify lncurable, or the care of them became
burdenSome The effect of the eternal still
ness, solitude, and lack OF occupation on the
mind was greatly heightened by the want of
proper exercise and nourishment for the
body. Accused" prisoners awaiting trial
in the TrubetSkoi hastion were allowed TO
have money in the hands of the 'smatriteln
or warden, and could direct its expenditure
for white bread, vegetables. tea. sugar, ETC..
to make up the deficiencies of the prison ra-
ton: but We. the Condemned had to live
upon black rye bread, soup which it was
often impossible to eat on account of the
spoiled condition of the meat from which it
had been made, and small quantity Of
"kasha," or barley, boiled with little fat
and served without seasoning, and sometimes
only half cooked.
ATTACKED BY SCURVY.
Such food, in connection with the damp.
heavy air of the Casernate and the lack OF
proper exercise, caused arrangement OF the
digestive organs, ana this was soon followed
oy moro or less pronounced symptoms of
scurvy. Madame Lebedeva, who was in the
penal servitude section with me- suffered
from Scurvy 10 such an extent that her teeth
became loose and her gums greatly swollen,
and she could not maSticate the prison bread
without first soaking 1T in warm water
Scurvy, even in an 'incipent form, intensi-
he'd, OF course, the mental depression due
primarily 70 other causes and made 1t allnos.
nSupportabie. | never seriously meditated
suic-Ge-iJ always seemed 10 me cowardly
thing to escape suffering by taking ones own
hte-hut | did speculate upon rhs possibility
N suicide, and wondered how | could kill
myself in caSelEss e where there was ALSO
lutely nothing that could be uAed as an i'm
PIGMENT Of Seif-Iiestruction.
Once vent so far as 10 see il could hang
myself from the small cylindrical hot air
pipe which projected two or three inches into
my cell from the face of the brick oven. I
ia not really intend TO take my life, but
teit morbid curiosity TO know whether or
not could DO ii in that way. As soon as
threw my weight on the pipe. it pulled out
the masonry, making. il fell 20 the floor q
noise which attracted the attention of the
guard Ia the corridor. was forthwith rs-