Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1888-04-19
PENAL SERVITUDE.
THE STORY A CONDEMNED NAN
TOLD AN AMERICAN.

The afiseries OF Prolonged imprisonment
In . Siberian Dangeop-1he Growing
Fear Of Tnsanity--Loss oe self-Control.
scnrvy-suicide.
You cannot imagine the misery OF pro-
longed confinement in casemate Of tho
fortress under what are known as dungeon
conditions (xartsernoi polozhenie). NY 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 chined the
quarter hours and which always seemed to
me to half arriculate tho words, Tee zdais
seedesh-ee seedee tee. = Here thou liest-lie
hero stilD. had absolutely nothing TO do
except to pace my cell from corner to corner
and think For long time used to talk to
myself in awhisper; 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 sort of stupor in which, so far as
can now remember, was not conscious of
thinking at ell.
WEAK, MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY.
Before the end of the first year l grew so
weak mentally and physically that began
to forget words. / knew what ideas / de-
sired to express, but some Of the words that
I needed had gone from me, and it was with
the greatest difficulty that I could recover
them. 1t seemed sometimes as if my own
language were strange one to me, or 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 samo
corridor were either insane or subject to hall
lucinationa; and was often reused at might
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 inn
agined they saw, or their groans and en-
treaties when in cases OF violent deliriun,
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 imagina-
tion, and thus increased my nervous excite
ment, until was on the verge Of Mysteries
myself
Several times, when feared that was
losing all self control, summoned the fort
ress surgeon, or tho "feldsher," 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 incurable, or the care Of them became
burdensome The effect of the eternal still
ness, solitude, andlack 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 Trubctskoi bastion were allowed to
have money in the hands of the ssmatritel,n =
or warden, and could direct its expenditure
for white bread, vegetables. tea, sugar, ETC.,
to make up the deficiencies OF the prison ra-
tion; but we, the CONDEMNED, had to live
upon black rye bread, soup which it was
often impossible to eat on account of tho
spoiled condition Of the meat from which it
had been made, and small quantity Of
'kasha, or barley, boiled with a little fat
and served without seasoning, and sometimes
only half cooked.