Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-29

BUFFALO, May 2S.-Mr. George Kennan,
who is npw in this city, was asked by a re-
porter to-day whether he had ANYTHING to
say with regard to the recently published
interview in which Mr.. Dunston, Vice Con-
sui General of the United States in Russia,
accused him of making exaggerated and
sensational statements concerning Siberian
prisons and the exile system.
81 have little to say" replied Mr..
Kennan, Except that Mr.. Dunston does not
seem to have the most rudimentary knowl-
edge of the subject upon which he talks.
He says that he has lived In Russia for 80
years, and it is therefore fair to presume
that he reads the Russian language. II he
had taken the trouble to look through the
official reports of the Russian prison admin
istration for the last decade he would never
have made, I think, the reckless and pre-
posterous statements attributed to him.
Even Mr.. Galkin Vrassky, the Chief of the
Russian Prison Department, will smile
when he reads the assertion so confidently
made by an American Consular officer that
in many respects the Russian prison system
is better than our own.
L.
"The most sensational statements that I
have made with regard to Russiah and
Siberian prisons are quoted directly from
the official reports OF the Russian Prison De-
partment and its officers. In my article
upon Russian Provincial Prisons, which
Mr.. Dunston, apparently, had not done me
the honor to read, crowded the text with
foot notes to show that nearly all my in
formation was derived from official sources.
THAT article has been more than two
years in print, and neither the Russian
Government nor any Of its defenders has
ventured to dispute or question my refer
ences to official documents. Ii Mr.. Dunston
desires to counteract the pernicious inf1u-
ence thatI am supposed to be exerting in
the United States he would do well to quail
ify himself for the task by looking through
the published reports of the Russian Prison
Department. He might, at least, save him.
self the humiliation of discovery that he is
denying the truth of facts long ago admitted
and repeatedly admitted by the Russian
Government itself over the signature of its
chief prison officer.
A RUSSIAN OFFICIAL QUOTED.
Gas for the Siberian prisons in particu-
lar 1 do not know what Mr.. Dunston can
possibly know about them, since be has
neither inspected them himself nor read the
reports of officers who have inspected them.
He thinks that .misrepresented and exag-
gerated their evils. 1t is unnecessary to
discuss that question since their condition
has been fully and frankly described BY the
Governor General of Eastern Siberia in the
official reports to the Tsar, copies of which
are in my possession. In the first of these
reports Governor General Anutchin saws:
During my journey to Irkoutsk inspected
a great number of prison institutions and 1
regret to have to say that with the excep-
tion of the prison castles in Krasnoyark,
1rkoutsk and Etapes they are all in a
lamentable condition.. The Etapes are par
ticularly bad
"In later report the Governor General
declares that notwithstanding the long
practiced exile OF criminals, the exile
system is In the most unsatisfactory condi-
tion.
BAD SYSTEM,
THE Etapes forwarding prisons and other
prisons, with the very fewest exceptions. are
tumble-down buildings in bad sanitary con-
dition, cold in winter saturated with miasma,
and to crown all. affording very little Sc
curity against escapes. The prisons in |
Nizhni, Udinsk, Chita, Nerchinsk, Blago-
veschchinsk and Nikolaevsk, astound one |
by their bad condition. The reasons for |
such a melancholy condition of the prisons |
are many. They are had because all the |
prison buildings in the Empire, except the |
principal ones recently built, are bad, and |
because they were built rapidly, |
with insufficient means and almost entirely |
without supervision, either administrative |
or technical"
speaking in the same report of the life |
exiles on the road the Governor General saws: |
Parties of prisoners. under guard of a con-
voy command, 60 on foot to Etapes, and are
whole months on the way, while the hard |
labor convicts who must go to the upper |
Amoor, do not reach their destination in less |
than year from the time when they enter
Eastern Siberia.
CONDUCIVE TO DEBAUCHERY.
i" In the Etapes the criminals and their
friends who voluntarily accompany them
are kept as far as possible in separate cells,
bnt they spend the greater part of the day
together. The scenes of debauchery to be
here cannot possibly be described.
All the shame and conscience that a pris-
oner has left is lost here completely.
Here 60 to ruin also the families that
accompany criminals into exile
without regard to age or sex. The subsist-
ence OF the prisoners on the road is very ex-
nevertheless are badly fed. Receiving food
money, in the shape of cash in hand. thev
rarely have warm food and are very scantily |
subsisted. Although innumerable rules
have been established By law for the regula-
ton of the exile system, such rules become.
for the most part, dead letters from the yery
day OF their enactment. on account of their
and the absence of SUPER
vision
AN oDIoUs COMPARISON.
SIN the light of these extracts from official
reports OF the Governor General of Eastern
Siberia to the Gar, should like to ask Mr..
Dunston IN what respect he thinks the
Russian prison system is better than our
own, and what raises the prisons description
BY Governor General Anutchin to an equal
plane with any in our own country?
But perhaps he thinks the Governor Gen
eral of Eastern Siberia is also a sensation
llist given to exaggeration. Such is not the
opinion of q better informed and more
competent judge than the American Vice
Consul General.
"On the very report from which have Just
quoted, the present Gear, Alexander Ill,
las indorsed in his own handwriting the
significant words, "A melancholy but not
lew picture Will Mr.. Dunston try to
maintain that the Gar of all the Russias
S also a sensationalist given to exaggeration
If the defect of his own system of govern
nent?
WISE TO MAKE A CHANGE.
''The Montreal Hera Id, IN an editorial sug-
rested by Mr.. Dunston's statements, re-
marks pertinently that if long residence in
st. Petersburg has the effect of making an
American citizen defender of the system
n = |
wise on the part of the United States to
.hange the snhera OF their officials, duty at |