Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-08
IN MURDERERS' LAND
Russia's Penal Colony for Her
Worst Criminals.
DREARY!1S AGHALIEN
CoNVICTS WHO EARN FREEDOM
BY GOOD BEHAVIOR.
Affairs Of the Island Are in Their
Hands-Women Are in Great
Demand.

| thirty years only one Americana am a
| naturalized American citizen, born in Rus
sia-has engaged in business on the island.
1 have just returned to this country after
four summers spent in trading among the
various prison posts on the southern end
Of the island and the military posts that
are scattered every few miles along its
western coast to guard the sole road rum
ming north and to search the straits Of
Tartary for escaped convicts making for
the mainland in dug outs or upon log
RATS. Saghalien is no place for trader
now. 1t has been cut off from the rest Of
the world since the outbreak of the war
between it's owner and Japan. No trader
will be able to make his salt there until
hostilities cease and 1t has been decldeu
whether Russia will keep the Island or Will
have to give back to Japan that when she
took from the latter in the days of the lit
tie brown mems weakness.
During my months of trading with the
military the exiled peasants and settlers,
the convicts themselves and the native Gil
yaks, fungus and Anus, L was ape 10 pc
come intimately acquainted with many
nhases of life in what might be aptly
termed Murderers' Land; but the conoition
that interested me most was that appei-
tanning to the women criminals. 49, =
Woman is exceedingly scarce on the is
land her number is about S,Ooo TO ou,oo
men, AS a result, her price Is lar dpoVe
rubies" and her value is not aHecteu ny
killed her lover in fit of jealous passion SION
or put poison in the wine OF the woman w Wy
was Turing her husband or sweetheart iAoi'i
her side.
Women in Demand.
So great is the demand Tor THESE iehi''ie
criminals as wives and housekeepers oii
the part of the convicts who nave seiVeu
their terms and become peasants Win
land tenures, or artisans in the towns
that long before convict snip aiii.o"
fron, Odessa hundreds of applications for
nossession of the few score women aboard
have been filed with the military sosei.io;
who sits at AlexandroVsk, the piiheip'i
prison post. ,,, h,
fore the war with Japan cast anchof III
the harbor in June of last year. by Ihe
time the conyicts were ready 10 uiseui
bark the wharf was black with clail.id noS
for the sixty-odd women among the ooo
newcomers. Many peasant, having heard
that the ship was soon due, had truoseu
from the interior over many miles OF FOREST
paths to put in an application for he,p-
meet and to look at more women thah ne
had seen at one time since taxing up MS
few acres of land on his release severaI
wears before from prison or hard lapor
in logging camp or the coai ihiliee VI
| the north. i.
once off the ship the women were taken
to the convict receiving station The sew
eral hundred applicants for them folloWea;
| each evidently confident that he womb
| surely be one of the fOrtunates to be desls-
| mated by the, officials as husbands to the
| sixty They waited patiently in front Oh
the building for several hours; in the mean
| time those of the civil and military au-
thorities who wanted wives were DUSTY
engaged selecting the best looking ana
most cultured of the women for them
selves Some twenty of the prisoners were
reserved in this manner, and then minor
official went about among the crowd out
side and told off the murderers who
were to receive the remaining forty,
for nine out of every ten persons ex-
lied to Sa ghalien have the brand of Cain
upon their foreheads These men We're
let into the room in which the women were
confined one at time. 1t did not take
long for any of them to make a selec-
ton; nearly every one was so anxious Ter
a wife that he took the first woman he
saw, without reference to age or looks
AS a result, some of the last to be let in
secured the pick of the group left by the
officers.
Apportioning the Wives.
In determining who shall receive wives.
the officials take into consideration the ap-
plicant's record since arriving on the Is
land and the propriety of his application
for helpmeet. Bribery rarely, if ever, in
fuences the selection. wife-hunting peas
ant or artisan has little enough to live on
at all times, and nothing at all to offer as
bride except a personal favor, and that
would be very slight, indeed. in most
cases.
A woman convict has never been known
to refuse to accompany the man choosing
her as partner She prefers semi-free-
DOM with even the lowest of murderers. to
prison life in Saghalien, where hard labor
means the most gruelling sort of work for
twelve or fourteen hours a day, with only
soup and black bread, and frequently the
knout, for recompense. The four great
prisons on the island have yet to shelter
woman convict over night.
Much comment has appeared from time to
time in various quarters of the world de-
ploring the governments sanction Of these
marriages, on the ground that a generation
Of degenerates will result therefrom. But
it is a remarkable fact, and one attested to
by all who are conversant with Saghalen
life that not more than 30 per cent of these
unions of murderers and murderesses re-
suit in offspring, and in these instances
rarely more than two or three children are
born to a couple. The total number of
children is small, indeed, in comparison
with the adult population; in the twenty
eight schools of the island less than one
thousand pupils are enrolled.
Born of Convict Marriages.
On reaching maturity the natfve-born
boys become artisans and the girls usually
become the wives of officials or of the more
cultured among the released convicts. The
authorities declare that the native Sagha-
liens are not degenerate by any manner of
the fact that the islands best artisans are
the very men born Of these convict mar
riages.
Not only the trades, but most Of the af
fairs of the island, outside of the work of
administration, are in the hands of former
convicts, who have gained their freedom to
the island through good behavior. A teach
err in the school Of Alexandrovsk was for
merly a captain in the Russian army, and
was sent to the island for killing brother
officer while at cards. All the small shop
, keepers at the various prison and military
posts, the Caucasian boatmen who swarm
the harbor during the open season. and. of
course, the peasants are all ex-convicts.
Many of these released murderers have
become commercially prominent on the
| island and in Vladivostok and Nikolaevsk.
| on the mainland, where they have settled
after having secured permission of the gov
eminent. And. strange as it may seem to
| the occidental mind, they generally have the
respect and confidence of the community
| though even the wharf rats know their
bloody records.
Two Of every three of the fishing fleets
that put out from the southern ports Of the
island are owned entirely by men who
would not have become wealthy thereby
had they not taken life in their home towns
in European Russia. Sea-cabbage grows in
nff of tho