The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1903-05-08

Russian convlcts are dressed in un-
blcached cotton shirts and trousers.
with socks-or pieces of cloth wound
around their legs, puttee fashion-and
shoes. over all they wear the "kha-
lat" or long. ulsterlikc fricze All are
in chains. one degrading form OF pun
shmcnt, that of claiming the convict
to Il whoelbarrow. which Is never de
tached either by day or night, has been
abolished on the mainland; but on SAX
halin to-day there are stlll two men
who are undergoing this miserable
punishment.
This form Of punishment. the officials
say. is necessary To keep them from
escaping. The clean shaving Of half
the head Is also intended 10 render
escape more difficult and Identification
easier.
Only one hundred out of the six hun,
drcd convicts in the worst prison were
being sent ont 10 do hard labor in the
mines or road-making; IL was not sur
prising, therefore, that the dreadful
cnnui drove some Of the remainder into
risking attempts at flight The night to
choose for an escape was when storm
was raging. 1t was on one such night
of my stay that six In the AleXJn-
drovsk Testing Prison. under cover of
the darkness and the bowling storm.
lassocd the tops of the twenty-root
stoCkadc and. clamheriug over, dropped
down and successfully evadcd the
patrols. The storm that night did us
rs good turn rs il did the convicts.
for returning from seven hundred
mile journey, mostly accomplished in n
dug-out canoe. we my interpreter and
II had entered on our last stage which
took lis through the forest into which
these six convictS had plunged. There
were two roads before us, one travcrS-
ing the forest and the other being
merely the sandy beach The latter
was impossible AT high tide. and had
this advantage. that one had only 10
defend oneself from human-or. rather
lnhuman--assailautS on one side. An
ex-convict who had given us hospital
ity begged us not TO take this forest
road. Now, Of course. there is free
masonry among the convicts and cx-
convicts. and while he told us that they
were armed with guns more particu-
lars he would not divulge Seeing us
Stlll unpGsuadcd he backed up his
| statement 10y telling us how the post.
which have seen leaving Alexan-
! drovsk. twelve miles distant carrying
| beside the driver one armed official and
| two soldiers with bayoncts fixed. was
] held up on this road. few miles out
| of Aicxandrovsk. So We determined
| To take our chances OF the rising tide
and try ths beach route. though we
had Just heard that the youth who lived
with us az AleNandtovsk had been muir
dcrcd on the sands FOR the sake of the
gun he carried.
We started I'm darkness with no Ian
tern. for that would have rendered u'
a mark. and the wretched telega moved
along at n snairs pace. We sat bacl
to hack. revolvers and daggers handy
in our belts and loaded rifles In hand
We had instructions from the polio,
10 fire II we should see any movini
form. Little. indeed. could we max,
out-though we could imagine a grca
deal-as we peered into the dark for
est on our way TO the beach. We ha,
dragged on at this miserable pace 10
about n mile and half. longing for
troisa with its galloplng stesds, whel