Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-11-07
THE CHAIN GANGS.
Two Glinpses of Life in the Land
 of the Czar.

''What's the matter heres" asked l, finding a considerable crowd assembled around the long, low front of the Great Eastern depot at Moscow, the starting point of the railway that connects Russia's old capital with the famous commercial center of Nijnii-Novgorod, on the upper Volga.
 ''Some fellows going along the Vladimir road,' sad 8 passer-by, carelessly. I shivered involuntarily at the words, which are proverbial phrase in Russia for transportation to Siberia, the manufactur- ing town of Vladimir standing on the great eastern highway, which is the most direct route to the penal settlements. But before I had time to reply peculiar chinking sound-only too familiar to my ear from my visits to countless prisons in all parts of the world-told me that the chain-gang was at hand; and in another moment the crowd parted like water cleft by the prow of ship, and the dismal pro- cession came filing through it.
 1t was strange spectacle, and not with out certain gloomy plcturesqueness of it's own, sad and heart-Sickening though it was. Most of the prisoners had the sullen, dogged look of the hardened social outlaw, who wages a lifelong war against society, neither giving nor expecting mercy. In the sunken eyes of others lurEed the half cowed, half-feroclous glare of a trapped beast of prey, as they kept glancing stealthily but ceaselessly around them, plainly bent upon attempting an escape, or upon some other venture more desperate still, if they could but find lit moment and Q ready weapon.
 1 noticed one white-haired old man, very poorly dressed, whose haggard face, hollow eyes and bowed attitude of utter despond- eDcy showed that he had reached that low est depth of misery where hope ceases to exist, ard all that can be wished or ex- pected is lessened measure of wretched- ness. Behind him came several young lads-evidently professional criminals, with whole lifetime of viciousness and guilt branded on their beardless faces, which had barely outgroWn the years of boyhood. These strove to assume an air of swagger ing and reckless defiance; but the poor pretence imposed upon no one, and least of all upon the stalwart soldiers that marched beside them, who, knowing we'll what real courage is, looked down with just contempt on this miserable affectation of it.
 Almost at the end of the gloomy file came the figure of woman, still young, whose face, wasted and deformed though it was by vice and misery, still bore manifest traces of former beauty. The hardness and heaviness of the lower features-a char acteristic defect with nearly all women of Slovenian racc-contrasteds startlin gly with the unnatural brilhancy of her wonderful eyes, winch kept glanciIg around with a fierce rcStleSSEcSS that reminded me of the look which had once seen in the eyes of shared wolf.
 s'What has she dones" inquired I, of one of the guards.
 Murdered her child," said the man, quite coolly; and I asked him TO more. In the very center of the train, a little behind the car that had chosen, long, heavy, boX-shaped car (the small narrow windows of which were protected by strong 1 iron gratings) awaited these unreturning l cxiles, who crowded into it like cattle, the | soldiers closing round them and urging 1 them forward. In the excitement of the moment had pressed somewhat nearer to | the group than was allowable, and one of l the frieze-coated guards. facing suddenly | round upon me, growled through his red mustache:
 "Pasholl! nevelaino podkhodit!" (Be off ! it's forbidden to come near.)
 "Why, brother, 1 haven't got .ftle in my pocket, if that's what you mean," said l, | ughing; "and these 'OStrojnil1i' Gail- birds) ought to be safe enough with a stout fellow like yo' to look after them.n | 'Well, you know, father, it's against or | ders to let any stranger go near them," re- piled Cerberus, somewhat less gruffly, "for | one can never tell what may happen; and if one of these fellows were to slip away it would be bad job for us Once they | get to Siberia it's all right for they can't escape there."
 "Does no one ever get away from there, | then?' asked I.
 "Ah! [barin nlaster], what are you say
 ing? Get away from thers, indeed Ma
 tushka Sbir Mother Siberial is a regular
 step mother to all who try to run away | from her can tell you''
 And in after days I had good reason to | know that he was right.
 1 But just at that moment there broke
 from tho crowd a voice as sharp and full of
 agony as the cry of sleep-walker sud | denly awakened: "Ach, Meesha! moi
 Aleesha! (Oh, Michael! my MickaelN
 Framed in the darkness of the prison
 car doorway stood a solitary form, the last
 of that doomed band, taking his farewell
 look of tho world that he was leaving The | face was that of a young man, and, though
 whit, and skrunkcn as the face of a corpse,
 it had in it g. nameless something which
 showed him to be far above the foul creat- l ures with whom 1t was now his doom to | herd forever.
 , At the cry he turned his head, and 1 had
 just caught passing glim pse of a young | girl in the crowd-she, perhaps, for whose
 sake he had plunged into crime-stretching g
 out her arms to hlm despalringly, when the
 whistle sounded it's warning scream. had
 barely time to spring into my own car
 when the fatal door shut upon it's prisoner
 with dull thud, like the falling of a coffin
 lid. There came a long, grinding creak, l and off went the train and it's dismal
 freight. looked out; the girl was gone, | but could see far in the distance two l grey-coated 'gorodoviye" (constablesl
 carrying away motionless figure between | them.
 At the moment felt as if that morning S
 work could never pass from my memory l hut if had well nigh faded Onlv a feyv