The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1893-03-18

could not be postponed. Inc wnoie az
fair, they stated, would not last longer
than a quarter of an hour. Jaksakoff
complied and left without telling any
one He never returned again. At the
police station he was thrust into a
damp, narrow cell, and here he spent
his wedding night. 1t was only the
next morning that he learned from a
sulky policeman that he was accused
of taking part in the attempt on the
life of Car Alexander ii. Q3th of
March, 1881.
Jaksakoff, up to that time loyal
subject of the car, could not under
stand how he could be suspected of
such thing. But the policemen soon
cleared up this point. Jaksahof had
shortly before left his old lodgings,
and at leaving had given his porter q
left-off overcoat. In the pockets the
porter found letter from tie nihilist
Kibaltshitsh, who year and half be-
fore had been executed for the attempt
on the cars life. 1t was, indeed, n
very compromising letter In it
Kibaltshitsh requested JaksalSoH to
give him certain promises: 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-
koff to swear that he only knew
Kibaltshitsh at the university at the
.1ov he lot did ,of II
what 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 mercifLl penalty, for the
crime for 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
czar's private funds. and, on account of
their containing so little silver, are
called lead mines. The transport to
Siberia lasted year and half. Dur
ing the two years that the prisoner
worked m the mines he suffered such
torments that he became an idiot.
The following arc some extracts
from Jaksakoff's memoirs. On the 10th
of May, 1882. he writes from the prison
at Mini Novgorod;
IL am Looked up with fifty others
within four walls The cell is narrow,
and the mold covers the walls with a
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 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 mp our places to the women of
two banished families, who. with their
children, are following their husbaRds
voluntarily into exile. A man who
has ever seen better days cannot have
any idea of the sufferings of exiled
prisoners. He cannot believe his own
eyes when he is thrust into such q eel.
lar, more wormy and horrible than
the grave, ami is told that for the
future this will be his abode. sMost,
so circumstanced, gasp for air, like any
creature accustomed to living oh land
upon being thrown into water Their
heads swim, and q few minutes after
entering they faint But their COM
panions, the other poor wretches, call
them back to life again, and in a day
or two everybody is accustomed to the
air of Russian dungeon, filled as it is
with the stencil of corpses, and full of
plague and typhus germs
Jaksako arrived at Tamsk by ship
from Tiumen the nineteenth of Sep
TENDER. 1882. He writes:
'The yard of the Tiumen prison was
full even when we set out on the jour-
ney thither. From the day of our arr
rival our numbers increased continual
ly, and fresh carav ans of exiles from
Perm and Ekatsrinburg were constant
ly arriving. We were crowded out of
our narrow prise ms, and at last when
we could no Ion ger stand or crouch on
the ground, regularly lay upon one
another. This was also to be our fate
on the ship. Nine hundred persons in
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
children, 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 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 sleepers were bleeding, and their
blood flowed upon those lying beneath
them. During the day the atmosphere