The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-07-20
SIBERIAN PRISON HELLS.
TWO LETTERS FROM EXILES IN
SIBERIA.


One From Verhollensk-Thr Years
in Transit-secret Orders of Count
Melikoff-Unexampl Brutality to
Women.
Copyrighted 1890
New YORK, July l9-It Is my pleasure
to supply the demand for information re-
garding Siberian prisons by placing before
nv readers two letters. written by women
exiled in Siberia, which recently received.
These letters present. a timely addition to
what became recently known concerning
Siberia and an interest the greater, in that.
to nv belief. they are the only ones of the
kind that ever reached America
They will argue with the readers the sub
iect of nihilism and imperial depotism in
way and with an impartiality Of which
am not capable. for, while l, as an inter
estei party, might not be absolutely i'm
partial, as / might view the facts in
light TO suit the interests of nlhilists. Of
whom am one, yet the letters from Sibe-
ria do not place their authors at such
disadvantage. They were written to the
friends and relatives of the exied women
and with tenor that leaves no doubt in
their genuineness and sincerity.
One is written in Oust-Kara political
prison" and its author lady p years old,
condemned to ten years at hard labor IN the
gold mines of that locality, judic ously left
her neme unsigned. 1t was well she did so,
for, had her letter been intercepted by the
cover arnent of the car and her identity
established, she would nave been hanged.
The other let er bears the date of YER
hohensk, a settlement on the river Lena, in
Eastern Siberia. It's author, also a wo nan,
and but three years older than her fellow
sufferer is undergoing sentence of twenty
years at hard labor. he slgued it with a
fictitious name of V. Alexandrova, by
which she Is known only to her friends.
Before give the contents of the Siberia
messages ! must tell how they reached me,
when were they written, and to give at
least few facts descriptive of the country.
Eastward from st. Petersburg for nearly
5000 miles the great Siberia highway runs
across the boundless prairies of European
and .Asiatic Russia, to the lake of Baikal on
the western border Of the Trausbaikal
province or Siberia; and only one CON
parativey Insignificant range of Ural
mountalns-the dividing line between
Enrope and Asia-disturbs the level of the
vast domain of the car. This is the road
by which the exiled nihilists are conveyed
the province of Transbaikal.
1t takes them two and often three years
10 reach the city of JaKoutsk, the capital
of the province. Likewise, 1t takes two,
three and even more years for a letter If a
nihilist located in the province to reach
Europe, for the safety of the exlles and
their friends and relations demand that they
should be forwarded not by mail, in which
case they are exposed to the scrutiny
of the unscruDulous Russian Off
Gals, but through unofficial channels
which, although slow, present a greater
safety. Such was the way the
letters came to me. On their way they
changed many hands before they could be
Entrusted to the safe hands of the British
and United States mail They Travelled for
over three years, as the date upol them
August %, lSS6--proves; and vet they pos
sess the freshness of the latest ne us. The
readers will undoubtedly remember that all
the recent cable news of which | spoke be-
fore pertained to events in Siberia which
occurred also three years ago.
Leaving Lake Baikal behind the exiled
nihilists continue their exhausting Journey
further eastward. On the road they meet
the small towns of Tchiua, Nerchinsk, and
finally, Szetensk, where they embark on
board a steamer which takes them up
Shilka river to Oust-Kara-a penal settle
ment with a number of prisoners. Fifteen
versts about nine miles, farther east an
other convict settlement-theL Lower Kara
is met Here male political prison" was
erected in 1877, the female political prison
being located at Oust-Kara.
Still farther east, right to the shores Of
the Pacific and off the mainland on the
island of Sahalin, and for thousands of
miles north of Amor river, in the arctic
and sub-arctic eglons Of Eastern Siberia,
a dozen other insignificant settlements or
ta0 pf ha liz tr;l -
Jaconter are scattered here and there
There the nihllists VINO finished their term
of hard labor in the mines of Gust and
lower Karas are deported to Verholiensk in
one of these settlements.
1t was the lot of my good and unfortunate
friend, Biborgal, to be the pioneer exile in
the Lower Kara. This was in 1873. Soon
after other nihillst exiles followed him.
until IN 1882 there were over 100 males and
ten females located on both Karas. To-day
their number is many hundreds.
They were all young and educated men
and women, who participated in the events
of 1S77-Sl-the period of the greatest activ-
ity of the nihili ,ts-a period during which
thousands Of nihilists, like silent shadows
momentarly appeared on the field of battle
on which Russian despotism cast their lot and
as suddenly disappeared MORALLY wounded,
aud since which not one of them remains
free, but my humble self. and but few are
alive to be found in the wilderness of Sibe-
ria.
In 1882 Count LoriS Melikoff became a
minister of the interior He had the reou-
tatiop Of man of liberal tendencies. and
great hopes were placed in him by all Rus
STA, not excepting the exiled nihilists The
first move of the new minister tended only
to strengthen his reputation; with noise
aud much parading he released many pihil-
lists from prisons of European Russia, and
issued orders etfecting substantial improve
nlents in the condition of Siberian exiles.
However, a second secret series of orders
was simultaneously dispatched to the
governors of the various Siberian prov
inces, which directed them not to
mind the first orders, but, OIL the contrary.
TO tighten the moose on the throat of the
''polticals. To effect this the governors
were to absolutely prohibit the exies all
communication with the outside world.
with their fathers and mothers, wives and
husbands; to forbid them accepting any
food. clothing and other helps from sources
other than prison administration to forbid
them the use of BOOKS and writing material:
60 abolish their labor in the mines and to
keep them forever under lock
Slow starvation stared in the face of the
politicals, for the prison food was unwhole-
some and insufficient. But, let nv friends
in Siberian political prisons speak for them
selves:
GUST KARA, Aug. IS, 1886.
Ny Dear Friend Since the order of