San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-07-31
DEAD BUT NOT BURIED.
TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF THE tx
LIES IN SIBERIA.
Suffering on the Road Graphically De
scribed-Charity of the People Who Wit
ness MISUNDERSTANDING of Cold and
Uunyer-Toid by One who Escaped.

Hunger-Toid by One VINO EscaPe"'
Mr., Alexander Baranoff, who was Russian
army officer, and who was sentenced to 81
IBERIA for alleged completely in revolutionary
schemes. spoke to n reporter as follows:
Were it not for the charity of the people OF
Russia and Siberia no convict would ever live
to see the end of his journey. The charities
of the city of Moscow, from which so many
prisoners start for Siberia, are great 1t is
the custom of the coRvicts to choose ono of
their own number as foreman when about to
start on their long journey When our COM
pany Of 500 men and women, escorted by the
soldiers with fixed bayonets, left Moscow our
foreman went up and down the lines of peo-
pie gathered to witness our departure. He
collected aims from the crowd, the money be-
ing put into bags and carried along to the
first station, where it was divided. The
amount collected was so great that every man
had S21
DEAD But NOT BURIED.
The government does not interfere with this
aims giving on the part of the people, in
every little town through which you pass
each vilager takes off his hat, and crosses
himself, and throws in a penny for the benefit
of the poor unfortunates," as the convicts
are termed by the people.
All that the American people have heard
and read about the sufferIngs endured by the
prisoners exiled to Siberia is true. The half
has never been told The soldiers in Siberia
have a name for the conviGts which well ex-
presses their condition. 1t may be translated
freely as you are dead but not buried" This
is the truth. 1t is a living death.
Typhoid fever is the worst scourge of the
exiles More convictS die of that than of
any other cause 1t could not be otherwise.
The indescribable filth and frightful atmos-
phere OF the crowded sleeping places at the
stations along the route are steady and sure
breeders of the disease, which makes dread
full ravages among the prisoners The fever
broke out among us when we were at Tobolsk,
and the prisoners died at the rate OF thirty or
forty q day. | was sick with the fever my
self. The prisoners received medical atten-
dance, such as it was. Tobolsk was a great
stopping place for transients, and at that
time there were 5000 convcts confined in va
rious barracks opening upon large inclo-
sure, which was strongly fortified.
Another thing from which the convicts
suffer in Siberia is the cold The cold Of a
Siberian winter is intense, and the convicts
on the line of march, unable to walk fast and
keep their blood in circulation because of
their chains, suffer much. | remember one
day, near the city of Tara, in the province
Of Tobolsk, when it was so frosty that some
of the baggage horses even lay down and
died. We lost three women and five mon
that day, who, chilled through and through
by the dreadful cold, succumbed and died in
the road, their bodies being picked up and
tO ba c+o
Some of the prisoners died in this way
every week, especially IN the Bratski steppe,
and yet it was only the ordinary Siberian
winter.
Convict life in the mines of Siberia is well
illustrated by our daily routine at the gold
mines of Nerchinsk. We got up at O'Clock
in the morning and had a breakfast of black
bread and bowl of Cruel We worked in
the mines till noon and then had dinner, con-
sisting of more cruel and black bread and
also a piece of meat The meat was often
horse meat, and young horse, let me tell you,
isn't half bad. especially if you are prisoner
in Siberia