Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-05-08
PENAL SERVITUDE.
THE STORY A CONDEMNED MAN
TOLD AN AMERICAN.
The Miseries of Prolonged imprisonment
in Siberian Dungeon--The Growing
Fear of InsanIty-Loss of seIf-ControI.

in Siberian Dungeon--The Growing
Fear of Insanity-Loss Of self-Control.
scurvy-suicIde.
You cannot imagine the misery of pro
longed confinement in a casemate of the
fortress under what are known as dungeon
conditions Qzartsernoi polozheniel. My case
mate was sometimes cold, generally damp,
and always gloomy. Day after day, week
after week, and month after month, l 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 articulate the words, Tee zdais
seedesh-es seedee tee" Here thou lest--lie
here stiID. had absolutely nothing to do
except to pace my cell from corner to corner
and think, For a long time used 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 l 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, 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. l knew what ideas 1 de
sired to express, but some of the words that
l needed had gone from me, and it was with
the greatest difficulty that l could recover
them 1t seemed sometimes as If my own
| language were a strange ono TO me, or one
which, from long disuse, l had forgotten.
l 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
| lucinations; and | was often reused at night
| and thrown into a violent chill of nervous
| excitement by their historical weeping, their
cries to tho guard to come and take away
| somebody, or something, which they inn
| agined they saw, or their groans and ell
| treaties when, in cases of violent dolirium
they were strapped to their beds by tho
| gendarmes. My inability to so what was
| happening in the coils from which these
groans, cries and sounds of violence came
gave fun play, of course, to my imagina-
ton, and thus increased my nervous excite
ment, until | was on the verge of Mysteries
myself
Several times, when feared that l was
losing all self control, I summoned the fort
ress surgeon, or the "feldsher," who merely
gave me dose of bromide of potassium and
told me that l must not excite myself so;
that nothing serious had happened; that two
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 incurable, 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 nourisbment for the
body. Accused" prisoners awaiting trial
in the Trubetskoi baston were allowed 30
have money in the hands of the "smatritel,"
CT 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 10 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 a 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 casenato and the Lack of
proper exercise, caused arrangement of the
digestive organs, and this was soon followed
by more or less pronounced symptoms of
sourvy. Madame Lebeaeva, who was in the
pcnnl seryitNde section with me, suffered
from scurVy to suo4l an extent that her teeth
became loose and her gums greatly swollen,
and she could not masticate the prison bread
without first soaking it in warm water.
Scurvy, even in an hcipient form, intensi-
fled, of course, the mental depression due
primarily to other causes and made it almost
insupportable. | never seriously meditated
suicide--iU always seemed to me q cowardly
thing to escape suffering by taking ones own
life-but did speculate upon the possibility
Of suicide and wondered how I could kill
myself in a caseInate where there was abso-
lutely nothing that could be used as an i'm
plement of self-destraction.
Once l went 50 far as to see if 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. 1
did not really intend so take my life, but
felt a morbid curiosity to know whether or
not could do it in that way. As soon as l
threw my weight on the pipe, it pulled out
the masonry, making, as it fell to the floor, a
noise which attracted the attention of the |
guard in the corridor. was forthwith re-
moved to anobher cell, and l never again |
tried similar experiment They say that |
poor Goldenberg succeeded in committing |
suicide in the fortress, but I cannot imagine !
how he accomplished it. l became satisfied |
that l could not kill myself in my casemate |
in any other way than by biting into an |
artery or dnshing my head against the wall, |
and ultimately became so weak that doubt |
very much whether l could have fractured |
my skull by the latter method. George Ken
nan in The Century.