Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1889-10-11
A HUNGER STRIKE.
A REVOLT OF RUSSIAN EXILES
IN SIBERIA.
The Threatened F1ogging-A De-
perate Protest Against Cruel
ty-Starving to Death-The
Prisoners Victorious.

rest of the State criminals were brought
back to the political prison at the Lower
Diggings, where they were put into new
vtnd much smaller cells that had been
made by erecting partitions in the origi-
nal kameras in such manner as to di-
vide each of them into thirds. The eff
feet of this change was to crowd every
group of seven or eight men into cell
that was so nearly filed by the sleeping
platform as to leave no room for locomo-
tion. Two men could not stand side by
side in the narrow space between the edge
of the platform and the wall, and the oc-
cupants of the cell were therefore COM
PEELED to sit or lie all day on the plank
mares without occupation for either minds
or bodies. No other reply was made to
their petitions and remonstrances than Il
threat from Khalturin that if they did
not keep quiet they would be tlogged
With a view to intimidating them Khal-
turin even sent surgeon to make ply
steal examination of one political, for the
avowed purpose of ascertaining whether
his state of health was such that he could
be fiogged without endangering his life.
This was the last straw. The wretched
State criminals, deprived of exercise,
living under dungeon conditions,
poisoned by air laden with the stencil of
excrement- buckets, and finally threatened
with the whip when they complained,
could endure no more. They resolved to
make that last desperate protest against
cruelty which is known in Russian prisons
as '.golodofka, or shunger strike.
They sent notification to Major Khal-
turin that their life had finally become
uncomfortable, that they preferred death
should refuse to take food until they
either perished or forced the Government
attention was paid to their notification,
but from that moment not a mouthful of
was touched. AS day after day passed
the stiffness of death gradually settled
down upon the prison. The starving
convicts, too weak and apathetic even to
talk to one another, lay in rows, like
dead men, upon the plank sleeping plat
forms, and the only sounds to be heard
in the building were the footsteps of the
sentries, and now and then the inco-
herent mutterings of the insane On the
| fifth day of the "golodofka" Major
Khalturin, convinced that the hunger
strike was serious, came to the
| prison and asked the convicts to
state definitely upon what terms
tkey would discontinue their protest.
They replied that the conditions of their
life were unbearable, and that they
| should continue their self-starvation
until the buckets were taken out of their
cells, until they We're permitted to have
books and to exercise daily in the open
air, until they were allowed to direct
the expenditure of their money for bet
ter food and better clothing than were
| furnished by the Government, and until
he (Khalturin) gave them solemn assur-
ance that none of them should be
| logged The commandant told them
that the talk about logging was non
sense; that there had never been any
serious intention of resorting to the whip,
and that, if they would end their strike,
he would see what could be done to i'm
prove the material condition of their life.
Not being able to get any positive assur-
ances that their demands would be com
piled with, the prisoners continued the
sgolodofka." On the tenth day the state
of affairs had become alarming. All OF
the starving men were in the last stages
of physical prostration, and some oil
them seemed to be near death Count
Dmitri Tolstoi, the Minister oi
the Interior, who had been apprised
of the situation, telegraphed the COM
mandant to keep a ''skorbnoi leest, !" OF
''hospital sheet, setting forth the symp-
toms and conditions of the strikers, and
to inform him promptly of any marked
change. Every day thereafter feldsher,
or hospital steward, went through the
cells taking the pulse and the tempera-
ture of the starving men. On the thir-
teenth day of the ''golodofka" Majo,
Khalturin sent word to the wives of all
political convicts living at the Lower
Oiggings that they might have an inter