Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-03-07
A Sample of Russian Justice.
February Century.


February Century.
Two of the most interesting politioals
whom We met in Irkutsk were Mr.. and
Mrs. Ivan Cherpiavski, who were bauished
to Siberia by administrative process In
1878. became very well acquainted
with them, and for Mrs. Chernisvski es-
peclally came to feel the profoundest
pity and regard. Few women, even in
Russia, have had before the age o. 35 so
tragic and heart breaking life, and still
fewer have maintained through hard
ships, sickness, and bereavement such
cheerfulness and courage. She was ar
rested In Odessa in the early part of 1878
at the age of about %, and after loag
term OF Imprisonment was sent by ad-
ministrative process to the province of
Tobolsk. In the city prison of Kiev, on
her way to Siberia, she was detained for
few days, and while there was forced to
be almost an eyewitness of the assassin
alton of her dearest friend. A young
man of English descent named Beverly,
whom she had known from childhood,
had been arrested shortly before upon
the charge of living on false passport
and carrying on revolutionary propa-
ganda, and he was at that time in the
Kiev prison. The night before Mrs.
Cherniavski was to resume her journey
to Siberia. Beverly, with comrade named
Izbltskl, attempted to escape through
tunnel which they had succeeded in dig
ging from their cell to point outside the
prison wall. The prison authorities, how
ever, had in some way become aware of
the existence of the tunEei, and had post
ed squad of soldiers near the place
where the fugitives must emerge from
the ground. Late at night, when they
made their appearance they were receiv-
ed with volley of musketry. Beverly
was mOrtally wounded, and as he lay
writhing on the ground he was dispatched
by a soldier with several repeated bay
onet thrusts. Izbitski, wounded and Sc
verely beaten, was taken back into prison.
The next morning when Mrs. Cherniav-
ski started with her party for Siberia
she Rad to march past the bloody and
disfgured body of her dearest friend,
which was still lying where it had fallen,
in plain sight of the prison windows, 81
| can bear my own personal torment" she
| said to me with a sob as she finished the
story of this tragedy, "but such things as
that break my heart"
need not recount the hardships and
miseries that she, cultivated and refined
woman, endured on the road and in the
| roadside etapes between Kiev and the
small town in the Siberian province of
TObolsk where she and her husband had
been assigned residence. They reached
their destination at last; child was
born to them, and they lived there in
something like comfort until March, 1881,
when Alexander III. came to the throne,
and Mr.. Cherniayski was required to take
the oath of allegiance. He refused to do
SO, and they were sent farther eastward
to the town of Krasnoyarsk. second
refusal to take the oath of allegiance re-
suited in their being sent to Irkutsk. By
this time winter had set in, and they
were travelling in an open tarantas with a
delicate baby 13 months of age. 1t was
with the greatest difficulty that Mrs.
Cherniavski could keep her baby warm,
and at the last station before reaching
Irkutsk she removed the heavy wrap
pings in which she had enveloped it and
found it dead. With the shock of
this discovery che beanie delirious,
and wept, sang pathetic little nurser
songs to her dead child, rocked it in her
arms, and prayed and cursed God by
turns. In the court yard of the Irkutsk
forwarding prison, in a temperature of
80 deg. below zero, Mr.. Ohernia vski stood
for half an hour waiting for the party to
be formally received, with his wife raving
in delirium beside him and his dead
child in his arms. Mrs.. Cherniavski lay
in the prison hospital at Irkutsk until she
recovered heI reason, and to some extent
her strength, aud then she and her hus-
band were sent 1000 miles farther to the
hao Il dor arl .afx Il
and coloniZed in Yakut settlement
known as the Bataruski ooloos, situated
in the "tiaga" or primeval wilderness of
Yakutsk, 165 miles from the nearest town.
There, suffering almost every conceivable
hardship and priyation, they lived until
1884, when the minister of the interior al
lowed them to resura TO more civil IL ed
part of Siberia.
Mrs. Cherniavski, when I made her &C.
quaiItanoe, was g pale, delicate, hollow
checked woman, whose health had been
com plstely wrecked by years of imprison-
ment, banlshmeut and grief. She had ha1
two children, and had lost them both in
exile under circumstances that made the
bereavement almost iutolerable; for seven
YEATS shs had been separated by distance
of many thousand miles from all her kin
dred, and the future seemed TO hold for her
absolutely nothing except the love of the
husband whose exile she could still share,
but whose interests she could do so little
in her broken state of health 20 promote.
She had not been able to steD outside the
house for two months, and it seemed to
me, when | babe her good-by, that he~
life of unhappiness and suffering was |
drawing to close. I felt profoundly |
sorry for her,-wbile listening to her |
story my face vas wet with tears, almost |
for the first time since boy hood, and |
hoping 70 give her some pleasure and to /
show her how sincerely | esteemed her |
and nov deeply sympafhiz I'd with he',
[ fered her my photograph as the only |
mem ento could leave with her. To my
great surprise she sadly but firmly de-
ciined 1T, and said: "Many years ago J
had photograph OF little child that /
had 10 st. It was the only one in exist
ence, and | could not get another. The
police made search one night in my
house, and took away al my letters and
photog raphs. told them that this par
5icular picture was the only portrait l
aad of MY dead boy, The gendsrue off
ser who conducted the search promised
ne upon his word of honor that IL should
De returned to me, but 1 never saw it
lgain. / made vcE then that it should
not be possible for the Russian govern
nent to hurt me SO second time, and
from that day to this l have never had
in my possession"
EXCUSE ME-"
By Luke Sharp.
Detroit Free Press