The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-11-19
IN SIBERIA'S MIN ES.
BOW TIE CoNVICTs FARE IN THE
DREARY PLACE.


Wastes of the Frontier.
From the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.
On Jan. z, 1882, the Russian university
professor, Vassilej Jaksakoff, aged IS, was
married to the beautiful daughter Of rich
Moscow merchant. In the evening the
bridegroom was sent for, and he left the
room without any of the wedding guests
roticingit. Three detectives were waiting
at the door, and they invited him to drive
them Immediately to the police station for
the purpose of settling a matter which
could not be postponed.
The whole offair, they stated, would not
take longer than a quarter Of an hour. Jak-
sakoff complied and left without telling
any one. He never returned again. At the
police station he was thrust into damp,
narrow cell, and here he spent bis wedding
night. IL was only the next morning that
he learned from sulky policeman that he
was accused of taking part i'll the attempt
ON the life Of the Gar Alexander II. March
Is, 1881. Jaksakoff, up to that time a
loyal subject of the car, could not UNDER
stand how ne could be suspected Of such a
thing.
But the policemen soon cleared up this
point. Jaksakotf had shortly before left
his old lodgings, and at leaving had given
his porter a left-off overcoat. In the
pockets the porter found letter from the
Nihillst Kibaltshitsh, who year and a
half before had been. executed for the at
tempt on the czar's llte. 1t was indeed a
very compromising letter. In it Kibalt-
shitsh requested Jaksakoff to give him a
certain promised article What could this
be but the material for the dynamite
bombs which had been used against the
emperors
= onu rata thu sposrh portor ,oox, o.r,n
to that conclusion, and the police agreed
with him. What good did It do Jaksakoff
TO swear that be only knew Kibaltsbitsh at
the university at a time when the latter did
not even know what nihilist was2 What
did It benefit him to assure them that the
article referred to was only harmless wa
terproof. and that the letter was dated from
the year 1872
He was condemned to hard labor for life
and this was regarded as a specially merci-
full penalty, for the crime of which he was
accused was punishable with death. The
victim was transported to Siberia, to the
Nertschinsker silver mines, which, at the
public expense, are exploited for the cars
private funds, and, on account of their con-
tanning so little silver, are called lead mines.
The transport TO Siberia lasted a year
aud half. During the two years that the
prisoners worked 10 the mines he suffered
such torments that he became an idiot
III Iuo VI 1900, q DdIbV
OF foreigners, evidently coming from st.
Petersburg. appeared at the mines, and
wished TO inspect the convicts. The latter
were marched out, among them being Jak-
sakoff- The inspector who was conducting
the strangers asked the guard about the
idiots history.
The man related the fable told by the
porter and accepted as truth. Then dread
full scene occurred. The poor man seemed
for one moment to regain his senses. He
raised the heavy barrow to which he was
chained and dashed it with all his strength
at the soldiers head, crying: Thou Hest,
wretcdn
The soldier dropped dead on the spot
Jaksakoff, too, fell down exhaused. He was
dragged back TO the mine and chained to a
wall and there he died few weeks after
ward.
The following are some extracts from
Jaksakoff's memoirs. On May 10. 1882,
he writes from the prison at Mini Novgo-
rod:
~ am locked up with fifty others within
four walls. The cell is narrow and the
mould covers the wall with thick crust
On the floor the dirty and filthy straw
reaches to our ankles This IS our resting
place. Two rows of low shelves stretch
across the whole of the room.
"Here l should rightly have room to
sleep, and here the others do Sleep on the
bare boards and without pillow of any
kind. But we have given up our places TO
the women of two banished families who,
with their children, are following their
husbands voluntarily into exile. A man
who has ever seen better days cannot have
any idea of the sufferings of exied prison
ers. He cannot believe his own eyes when
he is thrust into such lonely cellar, more
wormv and horrible than the grave, and is
told that for the future this will be his
abode.
Most, so circumstanced, gasp for air.
like any creature accustomed to living on
land upon being thrown into water. Their
heads swim and few minutes after enter
ing they faint But their companions, the
other poor wretches, call them buck to life
again, and in day or two everybody has
got accustomed TO the air Of Russian dun
geon filled as i Is with the stencil of cJrpses.
and full OF plague and typhus germs. -
JaksakoR arrived at Tomsk by ship from
Tiumen. On Sept 10, 1882, ne writes:
THE ward of the Tiumen prison was full
even when we set out on the journey
thither. From the day of our arrival our
numbers decreased continually. and fresh
caravans of'exiles froT.Peru AMI Ekateii i
burg were constantly arriving We were
crowded out OF our narrow prisons, and at
last, when we could no longer stand or
crouch on the ground regularly lay upon
one another.
This was also TO be orr fate on the ship.
Nine hundred persons in a cage in which
there was not even room for 400! Among
families the stronger ones during the hours
Of rest always lay on the floor and served
cushions for the women and children
otherwise they. like them, stood or crouched
about The Others arranged amongst them
selves to sleep by turns on the floor on each
others bodies.
AT night time the interior of the cage
looked like a large pit on a field of battle,
where the bodies of the fallen have been
thrown, one on top of the other. The prison
on the ship reminded one especially Of such a
sight When the voyage was half done,
nobody had any money left and everybody
fought for food. Many of the sleepers were
bleeding, and their blood flowed upon those
lying beneath them.
During the day the atmosphere on the
ship was vitiated, sitting and filed with a
sickening smell of blood. Then typhus
broke ont, aud of the 900 prisoners, scarcely
geo lved.n
The frontier of Siberia, at the spot where
Jaksakotfs party crossed, is marked by a
square cross. OF this place he writes:
vi raised my eyes to that gloomy grave
stone Of hundreds of thousands of exiles.
Its signs we're written all over with signs
and messages, the words Of farewell of the
caravans which had passed it,
L. -