Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1889-03-08
BANISHED TO SIBERIA.
TERRIBLE SUFFERlNGS ENDURED BY
A PAIR OF GXIleS.


Her Husband on the Road to Irkutsk
A Mothers Aneuish-why She Would
Not Accept "a Photograph.
Two of the most inter esting politicals whom
we met in lrkutsk were Mr. and Mrs. Ivan
Cherniavssi, who we're banished to Siberia
by administrative proc So in 1878. / became
very well acquainted with them, and for
Mrs cherniavsh espec ally came to feel the
profoundest pity and regard.
Few women, even in Russia, have had be-
toro the age of 81 so trt gic ard heart break
ing life, and still fewer have maintained
through hardships, sick ness and bereavement
such cheerfumess and courage.
She was arrested il Odessa in the early
part of 1873, at the age Of about %, and after
long term of Imprisonment was sent by ad-
ministrative process to the province of To
bolsk
need not recount the hardships and miser-
les that she, a cultivated aud refined woman,
endured on the road and in the roadside
etapes between Kiev and the small town in
the Siberian province If Tobolsk, where she
and her husband had been assigned a resi-
dence
BABY DEAD II HER ARMS
They reached their destination at last; a
Child was there born to them and they lived
there in something like comfort until March,
1881, when Alexander II came to the throne
and Mr.. CheIniavski was required to take the
oath of allegiance.
He refused to do so aud they were sent far.
ther eastward TO the town of Krasnoyarsk
A second refusal 10 take the oath of allegi-
ance resulted i'll their being sent to Irkutsk
By this time winter had set in and they
were travelling i'll an open tarantas with O
delicate baby Is months of age. 1t was with
the greatest difficulty hat Mrs Cherniavski
could keep her baby warm, and at the last
station before reaching Irkutsk she removed
the heavy wrappings IN which she had en-.
veloped it and found it dead
With the shock of this discovery she be
came delirious, and we e)t, Sang pathetic little
nursery songs to her dead child. rocked it in
her arms and prayed and cursed God by
turns
In the court yard OF the IrSutsk forward
Ing prison, In a temper lture of 80 degs. below
zero, Mr.. Cherniavsbi stood for half an hour
waiting for the party to be formally re-
ceived, with his wife raving in deirium be-
side him and his dead child in his arms
Mrs. Cherniavski lay at the prison hospital
at Irkutsk until she recovered her reason, anG
her husband were sent 2,00O miles farther tc
the northeastward under guard of gendarmes
and colonized in Yakut settlement known
as the Batarusld oooS, situated in the
''tiaga" or primeval wilderness of Yakutsk
l65 miles from the nearest town.
There, suffering almost every conceivable
hardship and privation, they lived until 1884
when the minister OF the interior allowed
| them to return to u more civilized part o
| Siberia.
NOT ALLOWED A PICTURE
Mrs. Chefniavski, when | made her ac
| quaiptance, was pale, delicato hollow
| checked woman, whose health had been com
| pletely wrecked by years CT imprisonment
banishment and grief.
She had had two children. and had los
them both in exile under circumstances tina
made the bereavement almost intolerable; fo1
| seven years she had bean separated by a dis
| tance of many thousand miles from all of hel
| kindred; and the future seemed to hold fol
| her absolutely nothing except the love Of tn
| husband whose exile she could still share, bu
| whose interests she could do so little il
her broken state of health to pronote.
She had not been ablo to step outside tn
| house for two months, and it seemed to IN
when / bade her good-py, that her life of I'm
| happiness and suffering was drawing to
| close.
Il felt profoundly sorry for her-while lis
| tening to her story my face vGs wet witt
tears, almost for the Il ST time since boyhoot
| and hoping to give her some pleasure ant
| to show her how sincerely esteemed her ant
how deeply sympath zed with her, l offere,
her my photograph, a. the only melnento
| could leave with her
To my great surprise she sadly but frml,
| firmly declined it, and said: Many year
| ago had photograph of a little child tha
had lost. 1t was the only one in existence
| and / could not get another
'The police made search one night in m,
house and took away all my letters ant
| photographs / told them that this particu
| lar picture was the only portrait / had of m,
| dead boy.
''The gendarlne officer who conducted tn
| search promised me upon his word of homo
| that it should be retur ned to ME, but l neve
| saw 1t again. | made O VOW then that
| should not be possible Tor the Russian govern
| ment to hurt me SO second time, and from
| that day to this havo never had a photo
| graph in my possession
do not know whether Mrs Cherniavsl
is now living or dead; but if she be still livin.
l trust that these pages may find their wa.
| to her and show her chat on the other sid
of the world she is still remembered witt
| affectionate sympathy.-Gsorge Kennan Il
Century.