The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-11-25

rather than enlargement, ana also
because 1t was taking all offenders hun
dreds OF miles away from their evil
companions, John Howard, after wit
Messing the plan of deportation of Grim
tnals from Russia to Siberia, commended
II to England, II a man commits muir
der IN Russia, he Is not electrocuted rs
we electrocute him, or choked to death
by a halter as we choke him to death
Russia is the only country on earth from
which the death penalty has been driven,
except In case of high treason. Muir,
derers and desperate villains are sent t.
the hardest parts of Siberia, but no man
is sent to Siberia or doomed to any kind
OF punishment in Russia until he has a
fair trial So far as their being hustled
off in the night and not knowing why
they are exiled or punished is concerned,
all the criminals in Russia have an oper
trial before jury just as we have in
America, except in revolutionary or riot.
Gus times, and you know in America at
such times the writ of habeas corpus il
suspended. There are in Russia grand
juries and petit juries and the right to
challenge the jurors, and the prisoner
confronts his accuser, and mark this, as
In no other country, after a prisoner has
been condemned by juries and judges
he may appeal to the minister of the in
terror, and after that to the senate, and
after that to the emperor, who is con-
stantly pardoning.
As said, the violent and murderous
are sent to the hardest part of Siberia,
but the more moderate criminals to more
propitious parts of Siberia, and those
who have only little criminality to
parts of Siberia positively genial for
climate, for you ought to know, il you
do not know, that Siberia is so large and
wide and long that it reaches from frig-
idity to torridity, from almost arctic
blast to climate as mild as that of Italy.
Run your finger along the map of the
world, and you will find that the lowest
part of Siberia is on the forty fifth de-
gree of latitude, and the richest part of
Italy is on the same forty-fifth degree of
latitude, so that Siberia reaches from
the furs at the north to the palm leaf
fans at the south. 1t has been demon
strated that ninety per cent. of the Rus
sian criminals colonized into Siberia go
into climate milder than New York--a
land songful with birds and embroidered
with flora enough manifold to confound
the botanists. Much Of the soil is rich
loan, and harvests wait for pillow to
llberate them. When criminal is sent
to Siberia, in the vast majority of CASE
IT gives him an opportunity to make q
new start under the best possible cir
cumstances. The criminal is allowed to
take his or her family along, and that is
! . mercy no other country grants. In
the quicksilver mines of Siberia, the
hardest place of repatriation, only one
Of th.a, Il,
other three-fourths go there because they
choose 1t as a place to earn their living.
After being in Siberia awhile the con-
demned go to earning livelihood, and
they come to own their own farms and
orchards and vineyards, many of these
people coming to wealth, and thousands
of them under no inducement would
leave those parts of Siberia which are
paradises for salubrity and luxuriance.
Now which do you think is the best
style of a prison-Siberia or many of our
American prisons? When a man COM
mits big crime in our country the
judge looks into the frightened face of
the culprit and says: You have been
found guilty. sentence you to the pen
itentiary for ten years" He goes to
prison. He is shut in between four walls.
No sunlight No fresh air. No bath
room. Before he has served his ten
years he dies of consumption, or is so
enervated that for the rest of his life he
sits with folded hands-a wheeling in
valid. In preference to the shut in life
of the average American prisoner give
me Siberia. Besides that, when offend
ers come out of prison in America, what
chance have they? Ask the poorly sup
| ported societies formed to get these peo-
| pie places for work. Ask me, to-whom
| the newly liberated come from all the
| prisons 1mploring what they shall do.
No one will commend them. The pallor
Of incarceration is on their cheek. Who
wants to employ in factory or store a
| man or woman who in answer to the
| question, Where did you live lastg'
| should make for reply, Estates prison at
Auburn or Moyamensing." Now in ST.
IBERIA they have a better chance. They
are never spoken Of as criminals, but as
unfortunates, and they are allowed every
opportunity of retrieving their lost rep
utation and lost fortunes.
l talked with the president of the
National Society of Russia for the Ed
| ucation and liberalization of the Children
of Siberian Convicts. The president Of
that society, appointed by the emperor,
| is lady of great accomplishments and
| much sympathy, which illunlines her
face and makes fearful her eyes and
! tremulous her voice. The evening l
| passed at her house in st. Petersburg
| was one of the memorable events Of my
lifetime. l will not attempt to pro-
nounce the name of that noble woman
| appointed by the emperor as the presi-
| dent of the National Society OF Russia
| for the Education and Mobilization of
the Children of Convicts. Please to
name any such national society in our
country supported by government for
| taking care of the children Of convicts.
| You know, if you know anything, that
there is no chance in this country for a
man who has been imprisoned or for his
| children. God pity them and hasten
the time when we shall, by some national
institution established by the congress Of
| of the United States, initiate the mercy
| of the Russian government toward the
| innocent children of imprisoned offend
ers. He who charges cruelty on the
imperial family and the nobility Of
Russia bellies men and women as gracious
and benignant as ever breathed oxygen.
The merciful character of the present
emperor was well illustrated in the fol
lowing occurrences: The man who super
| vised the assassination of the father of
the present emperor, standing in the
snow that awful day when the dynamite
shattered to pieces the legs of Alexander
the Second-I say the man who super
vised all this fled from st. Petersburg and
quit Russia. But after awhile the man
repented of his crime and wrote to the
emperor asking for forgiveness for the
murder of his father and promising to be
good citizen, and asking if he might
come back to Russia. The emperor
pardoned the murderer of his father, and
the forgiven assassin is now living in
Russia unless recently deceased. When
talked to the empress concerning the
sympathy felt in America for the suffer
ings of the drought struck regions of
Russia, she eyinced an absorbing inter-
est and compassion and an emotion of
manner and speech such as we men can
hardly realize, because it seems that God
has reserved for woman as her great
adornment the coronet, the tear jeweled
coronet of tenderness and commiseration.
If you say that it was man, divine