The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-03-29
CHILDREN BOUGHT AND SOLD
Slavery as 1t Exists In the North.
ern Parts of Eastern
Siberia,

The Russian News, of St. Peters
burg, publishes an account of the 81.
berian traffic in human beings, sent
by correspondent in Yakutsk, the
most important town ON the lower
Lena river. He describes the pitifu
conditions in these northern districts
and says they are responsible for the
selling of children into slavery.
Three classes of people live there
Russian officials and merchants. Rus.
sian peasants and Yakut natives. II
is the Yakuts who have the children
to sell. The Russian peasants buy
them and sell them again at good
profit to the officials and merchants.
The Russian peasants are not iv.
ing in those bleak and inhospitable
regions of their own choice. They
were sent into exile from their native
homes in Russia, some for crimes and
others for political offenses. They
are scattered through the districts
of Werchojansk, Kolymsk and va
kutsk, the most northern parts of 81
IBERIA inhabited by the white race 1t
is winter in these districts for nine
months in the year, and we have lit.
tie idea of the severity of the long
winter season and the misery it brings
upon the poverty-stricken Russian
peasants and the Yakuts.
In the district of Werchoiansk ia
situated the pole of greatest cold in
the northern hemisphere; in Other
words, the records of EXTREMIST cold
show little lower temperature than
has ever been observed by arctic ex-
plorers.
And yet in the brief summer season
the Russians and Yakuts ripen few
vegetables and cut little hay for the
miserable cattle that are kept in that
far-away land. The mining industry
is not important, and about the only
industry that keeps white men there
is the collection of skins and furs and
the trade with the natives who live
nearer the Arctic ocean and exchange
a good many skins for European COM
modities. The poor white residents
and Yakuts also engage in fishing.
In the best of years they earn but
a scanty subsistence, but their misery
is great indeed when their meager
crops fail. Then starvation stares
| them in the face. At such times the
Yakuts often beg from door to door
in the little towns or take to robbery.
| At such times also the father of the
| family will sell his children to the
| Russian peasants, his nearest white
neighbors, if he has any to sell. The
| price is a mere pittance, varying be-
tween So and $25.
! The well-to-do Russians of the of
| fetal or merchant class are the final
purchasers of the children. They pay
the middlemen who buy the children
from the Yakut families about one
third more than the Yakuts received
for them. The children are purchased
to be servants.
Such sales are against the law and
are made secretly. When the chill
dren reach their majority they are
free. They can no longer be held in
restraint; nevertheless, they are
slaves in their younger years.
1t is not to be wondered that the
Yakut population hate the whites,
who dominate over them. They Know
that most of the white population are
convicts sent out OF their country for
their country's good, and they see in
the better class of Russians only slave.
holding officials and merchants.