The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1893-01-14

Il
| porter found letter from the nihilist
Kibaltshitsh, who year and half he
| fore had been executed for the attem pt
on the ears life. 1t was, indeed a
very compromising letter. In it
Kibaltshitsh requested Jaksal<off to
| give him a certain promised article.
What could this be but the material
for the dynamite bombs which had
been used against the emperor? At any
rate, the smart porter soon came to
that conclusion, and the police agreed
with him. What good did it do Jaksa-
! lloff to swear that he only knew
| Kibaltshitsh at the university at the
! time when the latter did not even know
what a nihilist was?
| What did it benefit him to assure
them that the article referred to was
only harmless waterproof, and that
the letter was dated from the year
! 1877? He was condemned to hard labor
for life and this was regarded as a
| specially merciful penalty. for the
crime for which he was accused was
| punishable with death. The victim
was transported to Siberia, TO the
| NcrtschinslSer silver mines. which at
| the public expense are exploited for the
c2ar's private funds, and, on account of
| their containing 50 little silver, are
called lead mines The transport TO
| Siberia lasted a year and a half. Dur
ing the two years that the prisoner
worked in the mines he suffered such
| tormcnts that he became an idiot.
The following are some extracts
] r.,,yr, Tp1-
of May, 1882, he writes from the prison
at Mini Novgorod:
Il am locked up with fifty others
within four walls The cell is narrow,
and the mold covers the walls with Il
thick crust. On the floor the dirty
and filthy straw reaches to our ankles.
This is our rcsting-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
a 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 husb bands
Voluntarily into exile. A man who
has ever seen better days cannot have
any idea of the sufferings of eXilcd
prisoners. He cannot believe his own
eyes when he is thrust into such cell
las, more wormy and horrible than
the grave and is told that for the
fu;1rn 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 a few minutes after
entering they faint But their COM
panjous, the other poor wrctches, call
them back to life again, and IN a day
or two everybody is accustomed to the
air Of a Russian dungeon, filed as it is
with the stencil of corpses, and full of
plague and typhus germs
Jaksallo1f arrived at Tamsl by ship
from Tiumcn the nineteenth Of Sep
tember, 1852. lie writes:
The yard of the Tiumen prison was
full even when we set out on the Jour
ney thither. From the day of our ar.
rival cur numbers increased continual
ly, and fresh carav ans of cNilcs from
Perm and Ellaterinburg were constant
ly arrsTing. We were crowded out of
our narrow prisons, and at last when
we could no lon ger stand or crouch on
the Ground regularly Law upon one
another This was also to be our fate
on the ship. Nine hundred persons in
a cage in which there was not even
room for four hundred. Among fam
lilies the stronger ones during the hours
of rest always lay on the floor, and
served as cushions for the women and
childroa, otherwise they, like them.
stood or crouched about The others
arranged among themselves to sleep
by turns on the floor and on each
others bodies. At night time the in
terror Of the cage looked like a large
pit on the field of battle where the bod
les 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 the food. Many
Of the sieepers were bleeding. and their
blood flowed upon those lying beneath
them. During the day the atmosphere
on the ship was vitiated, sitting and
filled with sickcning smell of blood.
Then typhus broke out, and of nine
hundred prisoners scarcely seven hun
dred lived
The frontier of Siberia, at the snot
where Jalsaioff's party crossed is
marked by a square pillar. OF this
place he writes:
II raised my ewes to that gloomy
gravestone of hundreds of thousands
Of cXilcs Its sides were writfrn
all g.,,, with ;.,, 81