Wichita eagle., 1889-02-15
A.PATHErIC STORY.

A PATHETIC STORY.
Tho Terrible Trials Of TWO Russian
Administration Enea
Tears 10 the Eyes a the Resder-How
. Noble Woman Lost Her Child-
Misery That Ii Understandable.
The following pathetic passage is from
one Of Mr.. Kennan's articles in the Cent
ury: Two Of the most interesting polit-
icals whom We met IN Hkutsk ware Mr.. and
Mrs. Ivan Cherniayski, who were banished
to Siberia by administrative process IN 1873
became very well acquainted with them,
and for Mrs. Cherniavsd especially came
to feel the profoundest pity and regard
Few women, even in Russia, have had be-
fore the age of thirty-flve % tragic and
heart-breaking life, and still fewer have
maintained through hardships, sickness
and bereavement such cheerfulness and
courage. She was arrested in Odessa in
the early part Of 1878 At the age Of about
twenty-five, and after long term OF i'm
prisonment was sent by administrative
process to the province Of Tooolsk. 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 eye-wit-
ness Of the assassination 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 q false pass
port and carrying on revoluti onary prop
uganda, and he was at that time in the
Kiev prison. The night before Mrs. Cher
niavsd was to resume her journey to ST.
beria, Beverly, with comrade named Izbit-
ski, attempted to escape through tunnel
which they had succeeded in digging from
their cell to point outside the prison wall.
The prison authorities, however, had in some
way become aware q the existence Of the
tunnel, and he'd posted squad Of soldiers
near the place where the fugitives must
emerge from the ground. Late at night,
when they made their appearance, they
were received with o volley of nusketry.
Beverly was niortafly wounded, and as he
lay writing on the ground he was dis
patched by soldier with several repeated
bayonet-thrusts. Izbitski, wounded and So
verely beaten, was taken back into prison.
Tho next morning when Hrs. Cherniaysh
started with her party Tor Siberia she had
to march past tho bloody and disngured
body of her dearest friend, which was still
lying where it had fallen, in plain sight Of
the prison windows.
"I can bear my own personal torment
she said to me with sob as she finished tho
story OF this tragedy, but such things as
that break my heart
II need not recount the hardships and
niseries that she, a cultivated and refined
woman, endured on the road and in the
roadside otapes between Kiev and the small
town in the Siberian province of Tobolsk
where she and her husband had been as
signed residence. They reached their
destination at last; child was there born
to them, and they lived there in something
like comfort until March, 1881, when Alex
ander III. came to the throne, and Mr.. Cher
niavsH was required to take the oath of al
legiarcc. He refused to do SO, and they were
sent further eastward to the town of Kras-
A second refusal to take the
oath Of allegiance resulted in their being
semitic lrkutsk BY this time winter had set
in, and they were travelling in an open taran-
tas with delicate baby thirteen months Of
age It was with the greatest difficulty
that Mrs. Cherniavsld could keep her baby
warm, and at the last station before reach
in e Irkutsk she removed the heavy wrap
pings in which she had cnveloped 1t aud
found it dead. With the shock OF this dis
covery she became Gelirious, and wept,
sang pathetic little nursery songs to her
dead child. rocked it in her arms, and prayed
and cursed God by turns. In the courtyard
Of the Irkutsk forwarding prison, in tenn
perature Of thirty degrees below zero, Mr.
Cherniavski stood for half an hour waiting
for the party to be formally received, with
his wife raving in deIirium beside him and
his dead child in his arms.
"Mrs. Cherniavski lay in tho prison hos
pital at Irkutsa until she recovered her rea-
son, and to some extent her strength, and
then she and her husband were sent two
miles farther TO the northeastward
under guard Of gendarmes, and colonized in
a Yalkut settlement known as the Batarusln
ooloos, situated in tho 'tiaga' or prineval
wilderness OF fakutsk, one hundred
and sixty-fve miles from the near
est town. There, suffering almost ev
cry conceivable hardship and privation,
they lived until 1884, when the Minister Of
the Interior allowed them TO return to a
more civilized part of Siberia.
'sMrs. Cherniavski when I made her &C
ouaintance was q pale, delicate, hollow
checked woman, whose health had been
wrecked by years of imprison-
ment, Punishment and grief. She had had
two children, end had lost them both in ex-
lie under circumstances that made the be-
reavement almost intolerable; for seven
years she had been separated by a dis
lance Of many thousand miles from all Of
her kindred; and the future seemed to
hold for her absolutely nothing except the
love of her husband whose exile she could
still share, but whose interests she could do
so little in her BROKEN state of health TO pro-
mote. She had not been able to step out
side the house for two months, and it
seemed to me, when / babe her goodbye,
that her life of unhappiness and suffering
was drawing to close.
Il do not know whether Mrs. Cherniavsh
is now living or dead; but if she be still
living, trust that these pages may find
their way to her and show her that Tn the
other side Of the world she is still remen-
bered with afectionaee sympathy"
Precocious Children.
: No physician doubts that precocious chill
dren, fifty cases for one, are much worse