Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-16
EVEN WORSE TO COME.
George KEENAN, Thinks That Further AtrOc-
titles Will be Made Public - Sad
Stories Concerning Some Of
the Recent Victims.

on the persons of political prisoners at the
mines of Kara, Siberia, was shown to
George Kennan. 1t stated that Medame
Sigids had been fogged to death, Marie
Kaluzhnaya, Marsya Karalefskaya and
Madezhda Smirnitskaya having poisoned
themselves on hearing of Madame Sigida's
fate, and that the brother of the frst-named
unfortunate had committed suicide from
grief
"Such news, said Mr.. Kennan, his face
mantling with indignation, sis enough to
make mans blood boil. 1t has been re-
served for the closing years of the nine
teenth century to witness this crowning con-
summation of Russian barbarity, the fog
ging of helpless and unprotected women.
Well may we ask ourselves, standing here
in liberty's chosen land, how civilized
nations suffer such things to be.
ALMOST BEYOND BELIEF.
"0f Madame Sigida, the principal victim
in this tragedy, I know little, as she was sent
from st. Petersburg to the mines of Kara
after left Russia, in 1886. 1 believe, how
ever, that she was sentenced to long term
some time in the early part of 1887. 1t
seems appalling to think that this poor
creature was deliberately fogged to death,
though it would take, perhaps but a mode
rate infiction of the knout in the case of
feeble and doubtless failing woman.
''The hardest and strongest man will sink
beyond the possibility of rallying under 80
or 100 blows, and you can imagine the effect
OF such barbarous punishment when in
ficted on delicately nurtured and sickly
woman. The man who committed this out
rage must have been an extraordinary brute,
even for a Russian official. 1 have seen
brutes in Siberia in state of partial intoxi-
cation who might do it, and it is possible
that this fellow may have been under the
influence of liquor when he ordered this
torture inflicted. This official in charge of
the Kara placer mines would be invested
with full power to do anything he thought
fit, and he has nothing to check him.
AN ExTRAoRDINARY HISTORY.
''I am well acquainted with the history of
Marie Kaluzhnaya, the first of the three
suicides. 1t is an extraordinary one. In
1884, when only girl of Is, she was ar
rested upon a charge of disloyalty and
thrown into prison. While there every
effort was made to induce her to betray her
associates. For davs and days she was sub
jected t. solitary confinement, under an al
most uncomfortable mental strain, ignorant
VI ueE own Ldb6 vi LIl6 ldGe OI ueE THldIlV6Ss
She, however, successfully withstood, for
many months, all attempts to brighten her |
into confession or betrayal of the others.
One day a gendarme officer in Odessa,
named Colonel Katinski, brought her a
skillfully forged document purporting to be
a confession signed by her relatives, and
falling into the trap, the girl told all she
knew, obtaining her own release, but, to her
horror, ascertained that she alone had been
instrumental in sending her friends to exile.
''In revenge for this outrage she en-
deavored to assassinate the gendarme officer,
Katinski, shooting at him with revolver,
but only slightly wounding him in the ear.
For this she was sentenced to the mines for |
20 years In these mines she was not put to
work, but was confined for the most part |
within the stout log houses constituting the |
prisons, where they are employed in various |
menial offices. 1t is hopeless, dreary ex-
istence and many go insane while suicides |
are far from rare.
VERY SAD CASE.
"Previous reports allude to the suicide of |
others besides those mentioned. 1t is pos |
sible that among these may be Anna Pay |
loyna Korba, school teacher, Anna Yaki. |
nova, Praskovia Ivanofskaya and Tatiana |
Lebedeva, also scheol teachers, and all |
young women, who were at the mines of |
Kara when I visited them. It is highly |
probable that these women, highly educated |
and of a sensitive temperament, shocked be-
yond measure at the appalling finale of the
brutal treatment to which their sister con-
vict had been subjected, have committed |
suicide, in addition to the other two men
toned in the dispatch, Madame Karalefs-
kaya and Madame SmirnitzkaYa.
IF d.
is particularly sad one. She
is young married lady OF about 35 years of |
age. Her husband was teacher in one of
the gymnasia at Kiev. She commenced by !
peaceful methods of agitation, but finally
joined secret society, which was surprised |
and captured by the police. She was SEN
fenced to Ii years penal servitude, her hus-
band, who had not been present when the
arrest was made, being sent to part of ST.
IBERIA distant at least thousand miles from
his wife. This separation caused her to 90
insane and she was sent to her husband in
hopes that she would recover. Her recov-
cry took place, when, on a change of gov
srnors in the vicinity, she was taken back
20 the mines and again separated from her
husband.
UNDOUBTEDLY TRUE.
'I have but little doubts that the reports
If this unfortunate lady having committed
Ielf destruction are true. Poor thing. What
lad she to live for? The story of her little
yirl, who lived at Kiev with relatives all
his time, is peculiarly pathetic. She re-
,eived letters which this child wrote to her
parents during their exile, eloquent of the
Keen distress the little one feels at her en-
orced separation from her natural pro-
ectors.
81 see 1t is also reported that the men at
he Kara mines have broken out in revolt.
This statement confirms in my mind, the
whole story, for, while the mines to which
he men are sent are somewhat remote from
hese where tine female exiles are consigned,
ret it would be impossible to prevent the
lews of this outrage reaching the men.
The hogging of Madame Sigida in itself
would have been enough to have reused
hem to condition of frenzy, for it is the
irst time within nv knowledge that such an
Itrocity has been committed within the bor-
lers of the empire; but the subsequent sui
ide of the three unfortunate female CONF
'anions of the victim of official barbarism,
ollowed by the death Of her brother, would
lave been provocative of such frenzy of
Indignation, and that they would stop at
lothing.
ALL DESPERATE MEN.
They were all desperate men, sentenced
or life or for long terms, and would no
Ioubt have fearlessly opposed themselves to
he rifles of the soldiers with their bare
lands or with such rude weapons az they
ould wrench from the furnishing of their
'rison. 1t is this class of men who head the
hunger-strikes, where, in conse-
uence OF inhuman treatment, prisoners
ave been brought to think that they would
S soon die as live and set about deliberate
y to better their condition by starving
themselves to death until their demands
re complied with.
~ do not think we have heard the entire