Daily Yellowstone journal., 1889-12-18
RusslA,s chAlN GANG.
Scenes Among the Dependent Criminals
Leaving Moscow.

Scenes Among the Dependent Criminals
Leaving Moscow.
"What's the matter here'" asked l.
fndinga considerable crowd assembled
around the long low front of the great
Eastern depot at Moscow. the starting
point Of the railway that connects Rus
sia's old capital with the famous com
mercial center of MIMI ovgorod, on
the upper Nolga.
'Some fellows going along the
Vladimir road" said a passer-by, caro-
lessly.
l sh vered involuntarily at the
words, which are a %proverbial phrase
in Russia for transportation TO 81
IBERIA, the manufacturing town of
Vladimlr standing on the great east.
ern highway. which is the most di-
rect route to the penal settlements.
But before had time 10 reply a pecu.
liar ~clinking souEd-only too familiar
to my ear from my visits TO countless
prisons in all parts OF the wo.ld-told
me that the chain gang was at hand,
and in another moment the crowd
parted like water cleft by the prov of
a ship, and thedismal procession came
filing through it,
IL was a strange spectacle, and not
without a certain gloomy picturesque.
ness of its own, sad and heart sicken-
ing though it was. Most of the pris-
oners had the %sullen, logged look of
the hardened social outlaw, who wages
a lifelong war against society, neither
giving nor expecting mercy. In the
sunken eyes Of Others lurked the half
cowed. half ferocious glare OF a trapped
beast of prey, as they kept glancing
s~tealthily but ceaselessly around them.
bent upon attempting an escape, or
upon some other venture more DIES.
perate still, if they could but find a
tit moment and a ready weapon.
l noticed u white haired old man,
very poorly dressed, whose haggard
face. hollow eyes and bowed attitude
of utter dependency showed that lie
had reached that lowest depth of
misery where hope ceases TO exist, and
all that can be wished or expected is a
lessencd measure of w~retchedness.
Behind him came several young lads
evidently professional criminals,
with a whole lifetime of viciousness
and guilt branded on their beardless
face, which had barely outgrown the
years Of boyhood. These strove TO as
sumo al air of staggering and reckless
defiance; but the poor pr~etense imposed
upon 10 one, and least of all upon the
stalwart soldiers that marched beside
them, who, knowing well what real
courage is, looked down with Just con-
Tempt on this miserable aflectation
of it.
: Almost at the end of the gloomy
file came the figure of a woman, still
young, whose face, wasted and de-
formed though it was by vice and
misery. still bore manifest traces of
former beauty. The hardness and
heayiness of the lower features-a
characteristic defect of nearly all
women of Slayonian race-coutrasted
startlingly with the unnatural bril-
liancy of her wonderful eyes, which
kept glancing around with a fierce
restleSsness that reminded me Of the
look which | had once seer in the eyes
of a shared wolf.
'What has she donel' inquired / Of
one Of the guards.
Murdered her child. said the man
quite coolly. and | asked him no more.
Suddenly there broke FRONT the crowd
q voice as sharp and full Of agony as
the cry Of a sleep walker suddenly
awakened. "Ach, Meesha; moi Nee
shap ooh, Michaell my MichaelD
Framed in the darkness of the prison
car doorway stood a solitary form, the
last of that noble band, taking his fare
well look Of the world that he was
leaving. The face was that Of a young
man, and. though white aud sunken
as the face Of n corpse, it had in it a
nameless something which showed
him 10 be far above the foul creatures
with whom it was now his doom TO be
forever.
AT the cry he turned his head, and /
had just caught a passing glimpse of a
young girl in the crowd-she, perhaps,
for whose sake he had plunged into
crime-stretching out her arms 10 him
despairingly, when the whistle sound
ed its warning screams. had barely
time 10 spring into my wi car when
the fatal door shut upon its prisoner
with a dull thud, like the falling Of a
coffin lid. Then came a long, grind
ing creak, and off went the train and
its dismal freight could see far in
the distance two gray coated "gorodo-
vive" (constables) carrying away @
motionless figure between them
David Ker in Harper's.