Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1906-02-21
ST. Petersburg PRISONS
Solitary Confinement, Slow
Hangings. Eye-Hole Torture.
CAR SHOWS NO MERCY

Paul and the SchiuesseIburo-
Becks Nor Anything to Distract
ths Mind Allowed.
A special refinement of the Russian
prison system in the case OF political
prisoners and suspects. who are not
given a short shift on the glacis or
the ga4lows, is continued solitary con-
llEement until. as in the case Of that
splendid intellectual reformer. Dmitri
pissafeff, they can be reported as
harmless" Some prisoners here
were relieved of their senses quite
gently and almost politely. They were
sliut asp in comfortable cells well lit
with electric light, and for mental
pabulum they were supplied with only
religious and technical works. When
insanity or suicide superyened, tho
appointed end had been secured
But the doom of others presents
even greater features of horror. I'M
agine q dark, damp cell. measuring
about 10 by q, beneath the level of
the surrounding waters, in which the
chained man or woman is condemned
10 lie in absolute idIeness, studiously
isolated from any intercourse with
human beings. There is no bed, no
sort q pillow. nothing whatever to
cover the body but the prisoners
gray cloak. The amount allowed for
food is five farthings day, which
provides bread and water, and three
times a week a small bowl of warm
soup. For ten minutes every second
day the miserable wretch is allowed
Il see the light and breathe the air
in the prison yard.
For the rest intolerable loneliness.
absolute silence, occupation of not tho
smallest kind. no books, no writing
materials. no instruments of manual
labor Madness comes to such grad
ually with the passing years, not as
it came to an unhappy young lady,
rising painter. who received such
treatment at the hands Of the british
prison police that she lost her reason
instantly. In the majority of cases
the mind rots gradually in the enfee-
bling body Suicide and madness are
the two great weapons in which Rus
sian autocracy puts its trust
frequently. says one who has been
prisoner in one of these Russian
hells, some poor wretches will make
feeble attempt upon warder in the
hope Of at. last being brought to trial.
Shooting or hanging has been their
Let. fhe scenes of suffering wit
messed at slow hanging, occupying
at least half an hour have been terri
bic Within the courtyard of the
ie
ropes depending over a gallows. To
these the victims are attached and
then slowly elevated into midair to
struggle and gasp till death relieves
them from their agony Should the
governor or superior present be de.
sirous of getting through the business
speedily warder is ordered to seize
the suspended victims feet and hang
on. swinging backward and forward.
On previous occasions when there
has been large number of political
Offenders INSTRUMENTATION has been de.
hberately manufactured TO afford a
rreteNt for judicial murder. From
Polish nobleman. the husband of an
English lady now in London.
learned details OF his experiences in
such a case. I'VE never knew" he
said, Il and those who had been taken
at the same time. until after our
morniag parade in the prison yard
who would return alive to his cell or
who would remain in the yard-upon
his back ON the stones. Every morn
ing we We're subjected TO the grim
sport Of lottery After being brought
from our cell to the yards we were
placed in line. and a certain number
being drawn-say five-that number
OF men told off from the right. The
doomed fifth was then marched with
his back TO the farther wall and file
OF soldiers did the rest. | saw NV
own brother shot before my eyes one
n orning. l was eventually exiled to
Siberia. and from there managed to
escape"
Do you know what it is to have
your sentence of death committed by
the car? little while ago Europe
commented with satisfaction on the
Communication by the car of three
death sentences out OF FIVE. These
fortunate ones" were injured In
cells in the fortress of st. Peter and
ST. Paul Not only were these dens
dark Tor twenty-five hours out of
twenty-four, but the walls were run.
mig with damp and pools of water
had gathered on the floor. Neither
books nor anything that might dis
tract the mind was allowed, and one
prisoner having been found designing
geometrical figures with his bread had
1t removed by the jailor, with the re.
mark that hard labor convicts were
not permitted to amuse themselves"
Another calculated torture in these
cells IS the eyehole, at which a war
der or soldier is posed to watch the
prisoner. BY this means the quietest
prisoner is soon moved to frenzy. and
the slightest INSTRUMENTATION is at
once punished by merciless hogging.
if not worse. Thus it comes about
that of the three men whose SEN
fences had been commuted, one after
year of these horrors. became a con
srmptive; another, robust and Wig
cTous workingman, went mad; the
third, also man of powerful phys
ique. vas rotted with scurvy. Such is
the ''naercy of the czar New Yorh
Globe