Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1889-06-27
THE UsT KARA PRISON.
A Vivid Picture of Convict Life in
Russia.

/ 1AoS1ets
From George Kennan's article IN me
Century we quote the following 8:
Cossack corporal ran to the entrances
with bunch OF keys in his hand un,
locked the huge paddock that secured
the small door in the larger wooden
gate, and admitted us to the prison
courtyard. Three or four conyicls'
with half-shaven heads, ran hastily
across the yard as we entered, to take
their places in their cells for inspection.
We assembled two or three steps lncrusT-
ed with an indescribablc coating OF hlth
and ice an inch and half thick, and
entered, through heavy plank door,
long, low, and very dark corridor. the
broken and decaying floor of which telt
wet and slippery to the feet, and where
the atmosphere, although warm, was
very damp and saturated with tie strong
peculiar odor that is characteristic OF 81
beIian prisons. A person who has once
inhaled that odor can never forget lt;
and yet il is SO unlike any other bad
smell in the world that hardly know
with what to compare it. / can ask you
to imagine cellar air, every atom OF
which has been half dozen tunes
through human lungs and is heavy with
carbonic acid; to imagine that ar sun
further Initiated by foul, pungent, slight
ly ammoniacal exhalations rom long un.
washed human bodies; to imagine that
it has a suggestion Of damp, decaylng
wood and more than a suggestion o.
human aforementioned still you Viii
have no adequate idea of it. To unac-
customed senses 1T seems so saturated
with foulness and disease rs TO be almost
unsupportabe. As we entered the cor
ridor, slipped upon the wet, filthy floor,
aud caught the first breath of this air.
Major Potulof turned to me with
scowl Of disgust, and exclaimed,
'Otyratitclni tiurma" (Ot-vra-te-tel nee
tyoor-mal- is repu 'sive prison.
"The Cossack corporal who preceded
us threw opened the heavy wooden door
OF the first kamera (kah-mer-ah) and
shouted, 'Smilnon (Smeer-no) - BE
quiet the customary warning Of the
guard TO the prisoners when an officer IS
about to enter the cell. We stepped
across the threshold into a room about
"A feet long, % feet wide and feet
high, which contained 30 conyicts. The
air here was so much worse .han the air
III the corridor that it made me faint and
sick. The room was lighted by two
nearly square, heavily grated windows
with double sashes, that could not be
raised or opened, and there was not the
least apparent provision anywhere for
ventilation. Even the brick oven, by
which the cell WIS warmed, drew its air
from the corridor. Tie walls of the
kamera were OF squared logs and had
once been whitewashed; but they had
become dark and griniy from lapse of
time, and were biotched in hundreds of
places with dull red blood stains where
the convicts had crushed bed bugs. The
floor was made OF heavy planks, and, al
though it had recently been swept, it
was incrusted with dry, hard trodlen
filth. Out from the walls ON three sides
Of the room projected low sloping wood !
en- platforms about six feet wide. upon
which the convicts slept, side by side, in
closely packed rows, with their heads to
ihc walls and their feet extended towards /
he middle Of the cell. They had neither 1
pillows nor blankets, aud were compelled 4
20 lie down upon these sleeping benches 1
It night without removing their clothing |
md without other covering than their I
course gray ovcrcoats. The cell con-
aimed no furniture of any kind, except
hcse sleeping platforms, The brick oven,
md n large wooden tub. When the
loor was locked for the night each one
II these 20 prisoners would have, for
n 10 hours consumption, about as much
iir as would 10 contained ia packing
COX 5 five feet square and feet high.
iould discover no way in which single
ubic foot Of fresh air could get into that
ell after the doors had been closed for
he night"