The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1888-03-03
RUSSIAN METHODS.

RUSSIAN METHODS.
The Life OF Political Prisoners in
Petrop
How the Innocent and Guilty Arc Impris"
oned sether-I.cvo1utionary Inn
pulses Excited and Kept Alive
by Cruel Treatment.
The following is an extract from Mr..
George Remnants article on Russian State
Prisoners" TO appear in the March number
of tho Century Na ~ax.ne;
In considering the life of political prisoners
in the fortress of Petropaylovsk, the reader
must bear steadily in mind the fact that the
mon and women who thus anguish for
months or years in tho silent bomb-proof
classmates of the Trnbetskoi bastion arc all
persons who have not had trial. Their
case is by no means that Of condemned
criminals undergoing just punishment for
offcnses Of which they have bsozl duly con-
victcd in court of justice. It is rather
that Vt presumably innocent persons,
deprived for an unreasonable length
Of time Of the right to be heard
in se|f-lcfcnse, and treated meanwhile as
if their guilt were unQuestionable. That a
very largo proportion Of tho men and WON
eli thrown into prison in Russia upon polit-
ical charges are in fact innocent is not y
matter Of opinion, it is a matter of official
record. have shown in a previous paper
that out OF more than q thousand persons
arrested for alleged participation in the So
called revolutionary propa.1 anda of 1872
IS only 1913 wcro ever brought to trial, and
even Of this relatively snail number 90 were
acquitted by court Of judges Of the Gov-
clnElcnt's own selection. Ninc-tcnths,
therefore, of these prisoners were entirely
innocent, not only of real crime but even of
tho vague and sha1owy ofcnscs set forth in
section $50 of the Russian Penal Code; and
yet oil OF them wore subjected before their
release to from six months TO three years Of
rigorous solitary confinement in the House
Of Preliminary Detention, or in the damp
prison scpulchcrs Of tho Trubetsaoi loas-
ton. That d system which brings about
such results is in Che highest de.
gree arbitrary and unjust, and that
the subsection OF presumably innocent per-
sons to two or three years of such
treatment pending the trial is cruel in tho
extreme, are propositions that hardly ADJ
nit OF argument. Whether such wrongs
and ciuelties arc adequate to excuse the
violent measures of retaliation adopted by
the tcrroriats is s. question TO which diff
fcrent answers may be given by different
people; but 1t will, think, be generally adj
nlitUted that tho confinement of all innocent
man for three years il a casenate of the
Trubctsl1oi bastio11 Under the conditions
that have described: and the final release
Of such a man without reDaration or apcl-
ogy, and perhaps without even the formal
ity of e. judicial hearing, constitute extreme
provocation. Such was the view taken by
the eminent Russian advocate Gerard
when, in the trial Of Che regicides at ST.
Petersburg in 1881, he antlcavored to show
that his client ISibalcllich had boon changed
from Z laW-a5iditg citizen to y royolutionist
by unjust treatment o. precisely this char
acter; ana such was evidently tho view
also Of the court, which refused to allow
Mr. Gerard to finish his statement, and
which, when he persisted, informed him
sharply that the GoYcrnrcnt's treatment
OF its subjects was not a matter Tor his
Judgment"
That undeserved Imprisonment and cruel
toGs in tho Development of the Russian rev.
cSution movement clearly appears from the
later history of the ninety prisoners who
1913 in January, 1873. According to TIC judg-
the side OF clemcncy, those ninety young
against the laws. They had not even rcn-
fE,r tn
section Of the Russian Penal Code by man
ifesting "an inteation to bring about
change of government * IS Ut Il more
or less remote time in tho future and yet
they all had been punished with three years
Of the strictest solitary confinement III the
House Of Detention or tho Pctropaylovsl;
fortress, and had finally been denied even
The poor boon OF q public trial in an open
court whore they might at least have made
apparent to the world the injustice from
which they had suffered. The result was
that which might have been anticipated.
Almost every enc of the persons thus pun
ished and then found not guilty ultimately
became a rcvolutionist, and before 1855
more than y third OF them Wcrc III Siberia,
and two Of thcm-Anlre Zheliaboff and
Sophia Perofskaya--had persisted on tho
sca1Told with tho blood Of Alexander IT.
upon their hands.
do not know moro significant illustra~
ton than this of enc way in which rcvolu-
tionary impulses in Russia are excited md
kept alive. The agencies which transformed
these innocent young people into rcvolu~
tionists were unv2rrapted arrest, denial
for an unreasonable length of time the right
to be heard in their OWN defense, and pro-
longcd imprisonment under conditions that
thrcatencdto deprive them Of health, sanity
or Life. Three ycars-t,vo years-or even
one year Of solitary confinement in a case
mate Of tho Trubetslzoi bastion is quite
enough to e1nbitter and exaspcrate to tho
last degree consciously innocent man;
and if to such unjust imprisonment be
added the loss Of q brother, sister, wife or
friend in prison before trial. the transfer
nation Of the surviving sufferer into a rev.
olutlonist becomes at least an understands
BILE phenomenon.
A Darwin1an Example.
& remarkable case of disease is at pres
ent engrossing the attention Of medical
men in Austria There is lying at the hos
pital Of the city Of Isahl patient afflicted
with a bony excrescence protruding from
between the lower ccrv-ical vertebrB. The
cxcrescence has the form Of q horn, and il
,c,,r6 and c4r, crl,t rt-ith a Cinynctn7. Of one