The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-01-07

shortly before LETT his old lodgings,
and at Tearing had given his porter
left-off overcoat In the pockets the
porter found letter from the nihilist
Kibaltshitsh, who year and a half be-
fore had been executed for the attempt
on the cars life. Il was, indeed, &
very compromising letter In it
Kibaltshitsh requested JaksalfoF 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 70
that conclusion, and the police agreed
with him. What good did it do Gaksa-
I koff to swear that he only knew
Kibaltshitsh at tho university ct 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
Nertschinsller silver nines. which at
the public expense are exploited for the
cars private funds, and, on account OF
their containing SO little silver, are
called lead mines. The transport to
Siberia lasted year and hall. Dur
ing the two years that the prisoner
worked in She mines he suffered such
torments that he became an idiot
The following arc some extracts
from Jaksakotf's memoirs. On the 10th
OF May 1882, he writes from the prison
at Mini Novgorod:
81 am locked up with fifty others
within four walls. The cell is narrow,
and the mold covers the walls with q
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
two banished families, who, with their
children, are following their husbands
voluntarily into exile. 4 man who
has ever seen better days cannot have
any idea OF the sufferings of exiled
prisoners. He cannot believe his own
ewes when he is thrust into such Gel
lar, more wormy q nd horrible than
the grave, and is told that for the
future this viii be his abe ode. 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 CON-
panions, the other poor wretehes, call
them back to life again, and IN day
or two everybody is accustomed to the
air of Russian dungeon, filed as it is
with the stencil of corpses, and full of
plague and tyPhus germs"
Jaks aicoff arrived at Tamsk by ship
from Tiu1nen 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 ar
rival our mum bers increased continual
IL, and fresh carav ans of eXiles from
Perm and Eketsrinburg were constant
" arriving. We were crowded out Of
our narrow pri Sons, and at last when
we could no lon ger stand or crouch on
the ground, regularly lay upon one
another. This was also to be our fate
on the ship. Nina hundred persons in
a cage in which there was not even
room for four hundred Among fam
lies 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 creuched about The others
arranged among themselves to sleep
by turns on tbs 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 fallon have been thrown one
on top OF the other. The prison on tho
ship reminded one especially OF such
sight. When the voyage was HAITI
done nobody had any money left, and
everybody fought for the food. Many
OF the sleeperS were bleeding, and their
blood flowed upon chose lying beneath
them During the day the atmosphere
on the ship was vitiated, sitting and
filed with a sic1eaing smell of blood.
Then typhus broke out, and of nine
hundred prisoners scarcely seven hun
dred lived
The frontier Of Siberia, at the spot
where Jaksakoff's party crossed, IS
marked by a square pillar. OF this
place he writes:
Il raised my eyes to that gloomy
gravostone of hundreds Of thousands
OF exiles. It's sides were written
all over with signs and mes
sagcs, the words Of farewell Of the
caravan which had passed it. One
Of my companions, an cd man with
snow-white beard and hair, gradually
read the different hieroglyphics, the
secrct writing of the nihilists. and
while in the awful stiffness our chains
ratified now and again, his eyes were
filed with tears 1 am coming. l am
coming, my son, NV poor son. he
sobbed. Among the tangle Of the mes
SaFes he had discovered the hanGw7it-
ing OF his only son, who had been sen
fenced the year before, and, without
his family being informed, had been
eSiled 20 Siberia"
On arriving at the mines the dwell
iuTs allotted 70 the prisoners were
caves cut in she SIDES OF the mines and
closed by boltsd doors, where eight or
ten prisoners slept on the bare, icy-cold
floor. They were Rot even able 70
Keep each other warm, as the wheel
barrows which were chained to them
LII - L. .,-..-r-,--a,l NA.--.