, 1888-04-04
THE FOURTH OF JULY
CELEBRATED BY POLITICAL OFFEND
ERS IN 4 RUSSIAN PRISON.


Three Hundred of the Cars Suspects"
Remember the Centennial OF American
Independence-FIags, Strenmers, Songs
and Hurrahs-A Touching Spectacle.
In the summer of 1876, when there were
confined in the house of detention more than
800 political offenders, it was decided to have
a general prison celebration of the centennial
Fourth of J%uly-the birthday of the Ameri-
can republic. As early as the first week in
June the prisoners began to make prepare
tions for the proposed celebration, by re-
q~nesting relatives who visited them to send
TO the prison for their use as many red and
blue handkerchiefs neckerchiefs, shirts and
pairs OF red flannel drawers as could be sent
without exciting suspicion, and at the same
time all the prisoners who were permitted TO
have movable lights began to purchase and
hoard candles. The colored garments were
torn into strips, the candles were cut into
inch-long bits, and both were distributed by
means of the water closet pipes throughout
the whole prison. Some of the women, who
were allowed to nave needles and thread to
sew in their cells succeeded in making rude
American flags, and before July l almost
every political offender in the prison had
either a flag, or n few strips of red, white and
blue cloth, and an inch or two of candle.
RED, WHITE AND BLUE.
Day breaks in the latitude of st. Peters
burg in summer very early, and on the
morning of tho Fourth of July, 1876, hours
before the first midnight cannon announced
the beginning of the great national celebra-
ton in Philadelphia, hundreds of American
flags and streamers of red, white and blue
uNN--aI E---- IL
politicals around the whole quadrangle OF
the great st. Petersburg prison, and the
members of the prison clubs were family
hurrahing, singing patriotic songs and ex-
changing greetings with one another through
the water closet pipes which united their
cells.
The celebration, of course, was soon over.
The prison guard, although they had never
heard of the Declaration of Independence
and did not understand the significance of
this extraordinary demonstration, promptly
seized and removed the flags and tricolored
streamers. Some of the prisoners, however,
had more material of the same kind in re-
serve, and at intervals throughout the whole
day scraps and tatters of red, white and blue
were furtively hung out here and there from
cell windows or tied around the bars of the
gratings. Late in the evening, at a precon-
certed hour, the politicals lighted their bits
Of candle and placed them in their windows,
and the celebration ended with a faint but
perceptible illumination of the great prison
quadrangle.
TOUCHING AND URNFU
There seems to me to be something pro-
foundly mournful and touching In this at
tempt of 800 political offenders to celebrate
together, in the loneliness and gloom of a
Russian prison, the centennial birthday of a
free people. Compared with the banners,
the fireworks, the martial music and the
glowing %pageantry of triumphant liberty in
Philadelphia, the rudely fashioned stars and
stripes hung out from grated cell windows,
the faint hurrahing and singing of patriotic
songs through water closet pipes, and the few
bits of tallow candle, Illuminating family at
night the dark, silent quadrangle of the prison
in st. Petersburg, may seem pitifully weak,
ineffective and insignificant; but judged by
a spiritual standard, the celebration in the
house of preliminary detention, in the Rus
sian capital, of the American centennial
Fourth of July, Is an event almost as ex-
traordinary, and to the heart and imagina-
ton Of a freeman almost as impressive, us
the splendid demonstration in Philadelphia.
Human actions are not to be judged solely
by tho scenic effect which they produce, but
are also TO be regarded as manifestations of
human emotion and purpose. When Mary
Magdalene anointed the feet OF her Lord
and Master as an expression Of her devotion
and love it was a simple thing, almost a
trivial thing, but Christ said: ''She hath
done What she could" When the Russian
~revolutionists hung out rude limitations of
the star spangled banne from their cell
windows, and lighted at night their boarded
bits of candle as an expression of their devo-
tion to liberty and their sympathy with the
rejoicings of a freer and happier people, it,
too, was a simple thing, almost a trivial
thing, but they did what they could. George
KEENAN, in The Century.