The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1888-11-15
ARECEPTION CT THE EXilES.


Century, we quote the following: "The
prisoners had disenbarked before we
reached our destination. We found
them assembled in two dense gray
throngs at the ends of Il long wooden
shed, which was surrounded and
turned into sort of cattle pen by a
high plank wall. Here they were
identified, counted, and turned over by
the convoy officer to the warden of
the Tomsk forwarding prison. The
shed was divided transyersely through
the middle by low wooden barricade,
AT one end of which was IL fenced in
closure, about ten feet square. for the
accommodation of the officers who had
TO take part in the reception of the
party. About half the exiles had been
formally received and were standing
at the eastern end of the shed, while
the other half were grouped i'll dense
throng at the western end, waiting for
their names to be called. The women,
who stood huddled together in group
by themselves, were mostly in peasant
costumes, with bright-colored kerchiefS
over their heads, and their faces, |
thought, showed great anxiety and
apprehension. The men all wore long
gray overcoats over their coarse linen
shirts and trousers; most of them were
in chains, and the bare heads of the
convicts and the penal cOlonists had
been half shaved ngitudinally in
such way that ole side of the scalp
was smooth and blue, while the other
side was hidden by long neglected hair.
Soldiers stood here and there around
thn cha6 laanInn thaI1. havnnntnH
rifles, and inside the little inclosure
were the convoy officer of the party,
the warden and the surgeon of the
Tomsk forwarding prison, the chief of
the local bureau of exile administra-
ton, and two or three other officers,
all in full uniform. Colonel Yagodkin
introduced us as American travellers
who desired to see the reception of an
exile party, and we were invited 10
stand inside the inclosure.
The officer who was conducting the
examination of the conyicts drew
folded paper from a large bundle in
his hand opened and glanced at it,
and then shouted Nikolai KoItsofr A
thin, pale man, with heavy, wearied
eyes and hopeless expression of face,
who was standing in the front rank of
the exile party, picked up the gray
linen bag that lay beside him on the
floor, and with a slow clink, clink,
clink of chains walked to the inclosure.
The examining officer compared his
face carefully with a photograph at
tached to the 'stateini speesok, or
identification paper, in order to make
sure that the pale man had not 'ex-
changed names with some other exile,
while Cessack orderly examined him
from head to foot and rummaged
through his bag te see that he had not
neither lost nor surreptitiously sold
the articles of clothing that he had re-
coived in Moscow or Tiumen, and that
his 'stateini speesok' called for.
g Is everything there?' inquired the
officer.
= Everything, replied the Cossack.
. 'Stoopair ('Pass on!) said the
lieutenant; and the pale-faced man
shouldered his bag and joined the
ranks of the received at the eastern
end of the shed.
. The photographs are anew thing,
whispered Colonel Yagodkin, to me;
and only part of the exiles have them.
They are intended to break up the
practice OF exchanging names and
Identities
= But why should they wish to ex-
change names?' inquired.
'.'lf a man is sentenced to hard labor
at the mines,' he replied, and has
little money, he always tries to buy
secretly the name and identity of some
poor devil of colonist who longs
desperately for a drink of vodka, or
who wants money with which to
gamble. OF course the convoy officer
has no means of preventing this sort
of transaction, because he cannot pos
sibly remember the names and faces of
the four or five hundred men in his
party. Ii the convict succeeds in find
ing a colonist who is willing to sell his
name, he takes the co,Onist's place and
Is assigned a residence in some village,
while the colonist takes the convict's
place and goes 10 the mines. Hun
dreds OF hard-labor convicts escape in
this way"