The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-02-19
RUSSIAN CRUELTIES.
Text of the Official Order by Au-
thOrity of Which
POLITICAL PRISONERS AT KARA
Are to Receive the Same Punishment as Com
mon Criminals-UnGer this Order Nine.
Sigida Was Whipped to Death.

Especial to THE NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Dispatch.1
CHICAGO, Feb. 1S.-Yesterday afternoon
George KEENAN,, the American explorer of
Siberia, made the following statement over
his own signature.
Il nave received from two independent
sources in Siberia copies of the order of
the Russian prison administration bv
virtue Of which Nine. Nadeyhda Sigida
seems to have been 1ogged to death at the
mines of Kara last November. 1t is az
follows:
Ministry of the Interior, Chief Prison
| Administration, No. 1926, St Petersburg.
| March s, 1888 81
To the Governor of the Island of Saghalfen:
Your excellency: the steamer
Mimi Novgorad of the Volunteer fleet
which is to sail from the port of Odessa on
the 10th OF March, 1888, there is a party of
go convlcts banlshed TO the island of Sag
nallen. Among these criminals condemned
to penal servitude are the political
offenders Vassilis Volnof, Serge KUHN
Ivan MeiSner and Stanislaus Khra''
nofsk1. In notifying you of this
fact the chief prison administration has the
honor to respectfully request that Won
make arrangements to confine these politi-
SeR1 O4ACl4OC1o, uOb III u separate GrOun
themselves, but in the cells of other (com-
mon criminal) convicts. In making such
arrangements, 1T is desirable not to nm
more than two pOliticals into any one cell
containing common criminals In making
the arrangements for combining these poll
tlcals In prison and employing them in
work, no distinction whatever must be
made between them and other criminals.
except IN the matter of surveillance. which
must be of the strictest possible Character
Neltaer must any difference be made be-
tween them and other convicts in respect to
punishment inflicted for violations of prison
discipline. You will not fail to inform the
chief prison administration of the manner
IN which the above named political Offend
ers are distributed on the island of
Saghallen, and to forward reports with re-
gard to their behavior
(Slgned) M. GALKIN VARAssKAY. {
Director of the chief prison administration.
up TO the time when this order was
issued, some difference had been made i'm
siberian prisons between the treatment of
political offenders and the treatment of
burglars, highway robbers and murderers.
Botn classes were confined in the same
prisons, received the same food and wore
the same dress and leg-fetters; but the
poltlcalS were isolated in cells speciaI1v
SET apart from them, and We're virtually
exempt from corporal punishment. They
dld not enjoy this exemption, however. bv
virtue OF any law. Theoretically and
legally they were liable to the same
punlshments that were inflictedsupon com
mon criminals, namely, twenty to one ham
bred blows with the rod or the plet. q
heavy whip OF hardened rawhide with a
number OF Iashes. In practice, however.
II was the custom for the prison surgeon
TO make pro forma examination of the
po!tcal offender who had rendered him
lIlhl 70
ment, and certify to the governor of the
prison that, in his judgment, such political
prisoner was nots trong enough to take a
hogglng without danger to life Whether
as matter of fact, this certificate was
true or false, the governor always made n
MS warrant for substituting some other
form of punishment The government
at that time did not venture to nse
the whip upon the backs of refined
men and women, and the surgeons certif
cate was mere legal fiction intended tn
relieve the prison department from the
necessity OF actually enforcing it's right to
hog pontlcal convlctS, and at the same time
10 mold their right in allegiance. The issu-
ance of the order above set forth. in March
1883, marked new departure in the treat
ment OF political convicts, and since that
time they have been put into the same cells
with thieves, burglars and murderers. and
have been logged precisely as if they were
common criminals.
"On the 10th of September, 1855. a little
more than six months after the above or
der appeared, the month the very political
named there were fogged. Vas
sll1s Volnof and Ivan Meisner, and one
other named Tomashevski, were logged al
the penal establishment on the island of
Saghalien. Of thiss affair, have received
several manuscript accounts from Siberia.
1.-The particular order of which have
gwen translation, was addressed to the
governor of the island of Saghalien. but
similar directions were given, of course, to
the governor of the province of the trans
Balkal, IN which are situated the mines oil
Kara. Lieutenant General Baron Korip.
the governor of that province, seems to
nave insisted upon a merciless enforce
ment OF the order of the chief of the
prison department, and the flogging of
Volnof, Meisner and Tomasheski was fol-
lowed by the fiogging of poor Sigida
II do not care at present to make any
comments upon the terrible tragedy at
Kara, but desire to call the attention of
the American people to the fact that the
government which shoots and hangs adj
exiles at Yallutsk, and flogs
an educated and refined woman to death at
the mines of Kara, is the same governments
that is striving to get an extradition treaty
through the United States Senate, and the
same government that has advertised in
European newspapers the offer of a prize
Tor the best essay upon the life and SER
vices TO humanity of John Howard, such
essay to be read in ST. Petersburg at the
forthcoming meeting of the international
Prison congress. GEORGE KEENAN,