The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-10-19

l5 and girl aI F. FdFenLS alliance their children even when they are in
 the cradle. When a young Aino wishes to marry he goes hunting, passing through several villages. If in any one of them he encounters q young girl who pleases him he asks the price at which
 she is held. If his parents are able to pay it the couple are married forthwith The tariff varies from four to six dogs or dozen sable skins, boat or a sled. If the girls father has no son l the young couple live with him. Tn case he has one they go to the hus-
 bands father or to live with an elder ! brother. or to a house specially built for them.
 In one case out Of six, the wife is older than the husband. Sometimes l there is a difference of ten or twenty years. This arises from the fact that
 if an older brother dies, leaving a wid- ow and younger brother, the latter marries her This is from motives of economy; for the widow, being already a member of the family of the young husband, he is not. obliged to purchase her. Later on, if he wishes to marry young woman, he cannot do so with
 out permission of the older wife
 Twice yearly a Russian convict ship sails from Odessa for Sakhalin. The prisoners are confined in the hold in iron cages. Before sailing, there is medical inspection, but it is so careless that convicts i'll of serious maladies and in the last stages of tuberculosis are al- | 1f4 aoA
 ed die during the voyage. The convicts i have leg irons until they reach the Red Sea. There the heat becomes to intol- erable that it is necessary to remove them. Every day they are brought up | between decks, in groups. and the ships hose Is turned on them: other wise they would not be able to endure the suffocating air of their cages. In the tropics they are allowed to discard ] clothing. About eighty convicts are | confined in each cage, They are so crowded that in sleeping the head of one rests on the body of his neighbor. Punishments administered while on the ship are very severe7-the whip, irons and confinement in a dark cell where the prisoner can hardly breathe. In | 1901, in midsummer, one of these con vict ships was obliged to remain at 1 Saigon for. several weeks to- make re- pairs. Eight hundred convicts, in the terrible heat and their disgusting pro- miscuity, suffered indescribable ago.
 nies. When the convicts arrive at Sak- halin they are distributed among the six prisons on the island, two on the west coast, three in the interior and one in the southern portion. M. Labbe | visited all of them, and underwent tem- porary confinement in one in order to l get local color" One prison resembles 1 the other-great wooden barracks, with an interior court into which the cells | open. Sometimes as many as fifty con- victs are crowded into a single cell. Each prison consists of two divisions. one of correction, the other of ameilora- l tion.
 Convicts condemned to life imprison- ment remain eight years in the first and two in the second. Those sen- tenced to more than twenty years at hard labor have the period of confine- | ment gradually reduced until those de- ported for minor offenses suffer only nominal representation. When conv' cts have completed their term in prison
 they are supplied with an ax, saw and | ropes and sent to the Interior as colon- lists. For two years, while they are build | ing a hut and clearing the ground for
 cultivation, they are supplied with pro- visions; after that they are obliged to 1 support themselves upon what they can | get from the soil. Their condition is
 so wretched andthey are so near star | ing that many commit crime in order I to be returned to prison. After four teen years of service as convict colon- ists they are called peasants" They have then the privilege of living on the
 mainland or even of returning to Euro- pean Russia.
 l A good many convicts succeed in
 making their escape. In summer they
 hide in the holds of boats sailing
 across the narrow strait which sepa-
 rates Sakhalln from the mainland. In
 the winter they are able to cross on the ice. If they succeed in evading the
 vigilance of the coast guards they have
 8 long perflous journey on foot across
 Asiatic Russia before them. One fe-
 male convict and her three children 1 shoeless-succeeded in accomplishing
 it. When she reached her native vil-
 lage in Russia she was recognized, ar
 rested and returned to Sakhalin.
 M Labbe calls the directors of the prisons sinister persOnages." They l are the real masters of the island. The
 other functionaries are mere tools in
 their hands; spied upon by convicts
 set to watch them in the hope that they
 may be detected in some deviation from which the directors may profit. | These sell OF the sly to merchants on
 the island goods made in the prisons.
 In this way they would gain enough
 to make themselves independently rich, i were it not for their passion for gambl-
 ing, which puts in circulation the
 money of which they are defrauding
 the government Moreover, these di- | rectors are mercilessly cruel to the poor
 creatures over. whom they rule. For 1 amusement they will enclose a convict
 in a barrel and roll him down hill. 1 The whistle of the lash of the whip is
 music to them. Yet M. Labbe says
 there is no instance of convict at- l tempting the life of a director of pris~
 ons. They are so terrorized and cowed
 that all spirit of resistance or revenge l is crushed out Of them.