Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1890-02-26
Siberian Horrors.

The time has passed when the affairs
of one nation are no concern of another.
The outrages of the Russian government
in Siberia send thrill of horror through
the civilized world. It is the business,
and that immediate, of Christian ma
tions to demonstrate with Russia in a
way that she cannot misunderstood on
this subject.
First came the story of the massacre
of political exiles at Yakutsk April 3.
On that day a number of exiles were as
sembled in room to wait the result of
petition they had presented to the gov
ernor of Yakutsk. A police overseer ap-
peared and ordered them to go to the
police station They did not move i'm
mediately, but argued with the overseer
and desired to know what the chief of
police wanted of them.
They supposed they had right to do
this, as heretofore political prisoners had
been regarded as on different footing
from common criminals. But in March,
1888, secret orders had been issued from
st. Petersburg that certain political exiles
should be treated in all respects like other
criminals. That meant, among other
things, fogging for slight infractions of
discipline. Prison officials have freely
applied this order throughout Siberia.
Cossacks sought to force the exiles at
Yakutsk out of the room in which they
were They resisted, one of them draw
ing revolver. Immediately they were
fred upon and attacked with bayonets.
Then such of the exiles eS were armed
began to fire. Six of them were killed,
eone being a woman whose stomach was
torn open with a bayonet. Twelve were
wounded. Of the Cossacks, one SOL
dier was killed and two persons were
wounded.
It is to be noted that the Russian gov
ernment strenuously denied this mas
sacre, and the facts only reached the
outside world through the underground
route familiar here in the days of Amer
ican slavery. But there is no doubt of
the truth of the story.
Next came the horror of the fogging
to death of Nine. Sigida, Nov. 6. The
whip with which the paternal govern
ment of Russia disciplines its children is
similar to the cat O. nine tails in use at
sea when there were more brutality and
ferocity in the navies of the world than
there are at present. 1t is made of hard
.ened raw hide, with number of lashes
attached. Twenty to 100 blows are al
lowed to be administered with this whip.
From March, 1888, till November, 1889,
several exiles had already been fogged
in consequence of the order in March.
But no word except tiendish can charac-
terize the whipping of Nine. Sigida. The
story is that she had been insulted by
prison official. She was beautiful,
delicate woman of the highest culture,
and she resented the insult. For thisshe
received upon her naked back the whip
ping that killed her.
After the beating she sank down un-
conscious, and, happily for herself, never
recovered. After her death three other
women prisoners, appalled, at her fate,
took poison and died. One of them was
"a girl of IS. What kind of a crazy, hys-
terical government is that which sees in
"a girl of IS a dangerous criminal, and
sentences her to exile and penal servi-
tude?
The lash that cut the life out of Hope
and wake the humanity of the nations.
Tine was when the nations took action
on account of the butchery of Christians
by the Turk. But when did even the un-
speakable Turk do anything worse than
this2