Evening star., 1898-11-10
ESCAPING FROM SIBERIA.
Hapless Convicts Are Secretly Help
ed by Kind Villagers.
From Pearson's Week


Those subjects of the tsar who are sent Il,
Siberian prisons for a real or fancied Of
fcnse against the social laws or the political
DEGREES of the power that is know that
they will be treated harshly; but in no part
of the dreary country is imprisonment 50
cruel as in the Kara prison, where the
convicts work in the mines
Attempts to escape are common occur
renee all over the country, but the num-
ber of conyicts who make a dash for
liberty from tine Kara mines is far greater
than from any other prison.
The miserable creatures who endeavor to
elude the iron grasp of the tsar's officials
prefer the spring for their attempt. There
is more chance of reaching the outer world.
OF crossing the many miles of desoate ter
ritory that separate them from a place of
safety. in the early months of the year;
but they cannot always choose their own
time. and in the very depths of the Siberian
winter the desperate men make the strug-
gle for freedom, preferring the rigors of
nlsht tramping in the coldest season to the
niSeries OF the prison.
How do these men find their way? How
do they live?
They know the direction in which safety
lies, and they tramp onward until they
reach some spot where they are safe. That
spot may be far away from the town at
which they imagined they would arrive;
but what of that? They are free, that is
the all-important matter.
Yet there is some guide for them along
the first hundred miles so; for in the
night when all is still and the peasants
In the scattered villages are sleeping, the
refugees heart is gladdened in his dark
and solitary journey by the friendly gleam
of lamps in the cottage windows. From the
depths Of Asia to the borders of Europe
almost, at least one window in every vii
lage is Illuminated by lamp placed there
for the benefit of those who must not be
seen"
For the moujiks have pity on them and
help them The escaped copvicts cannot
travel by day. lest they be denounced TO
the guards who are searching for them.
They have to find sustenance where they
may; money is useless to them, as they
dare not openly enter a tavern or indeed
any other place in order to buy food or To
leg for IL, even. The peasants dare not
openly receive or help them. and the chance
of success would be very small but for the
device of the mOujik.
If you enter the house of a peasant in the
vicinity, say, of Irkutsk, and partake of a
meal, you will notice in the window a little
table on which stands a lamp, a plate and a
jug. When the meal commences, one of
the family places a portion of the food on
the plate; quite a choice morsel is selected,
and you fancy that another and more i'm
portant guest is expected. A piece of every
thing is set out on the plate and the jug
is filled with kvas You begin to feel rather
small. When you entered you were treated
like a nobleman, but evidently you are not
the chief guest.
However, the guest does not come and
more mystified than ever. you seek an op-
pcrtunity of asking the meaning of the
strange preparations.
''WhO is it all for?' YOU ask
For the brodiaji; for those who must
not be seen " is the reply.
Yes those delicacies are for the conYicts.
When they stea.lthily creep into a village at
night and see that light, they know that on
the same table as the lamp is food and
drink. They have only to push the window
and 1T opens, so that they may take the
plate and jug and refresh exhausted ne-
ture
The moujik does not wish to see them; it
Is better not. When he sees the empty
plate and jug in the morning he is pleased,
for he knows that he has helped some poor
creature in his effort to escape from cruel
ty and a living death and get back to life
and human sympathies.