The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1908-06-13

erers, blaclliegs and thleve are ban
ished. ! was classed as a murderer.
when 1Ist arrived at the Sakha-
lin prison COLONY | was chained with
a prisoner tc ,NheelDari'ow and
put TO work in the mines which are
owned by the government and
worked by the convicts. That pris-
amer and were chained together for
two years; wo had to work side by
side and sleep within chains
length of eacl ether. That prisoner
and became the dearest friends. He
admitted that he had taken a life
but the circumstances of his crime
were such That |, who in the eyes
OF the czar's government had con-
spired TO take life also. was not
the one to sit in judgment, particu-
larly on a man who was chained TO
me.
''My .elloT prisoner died almsot
IN the chains beside me. A new
govisrnor of Dui came about that
time. Tie was much more reasonable
end charitable man than his prede-
cessor had been. He took me away
from the wheelbarrow and allowed NE
to become Ills clerk, | had cabin
OF my own. which built with my
own hands, aud most of my time was
my own. vas free to go and come
outside the boundaries of the viii
l9ge where ;he prison huts were.
! 81 then began to write books
knew that none of them would ever
be published. wrote for my own
amusement. | believe put the whole
experience ard thought of my life
time in thos? books they were all.
books upon ,he subject that J was
acquainted with written without ref
erence TO libraries and without an
eye to criticlsc The governor read
them, but he was not competent to
ju,lge of thsir merits.
II wrote and stored away manu-
scripts n a b'p chest l made for my
self. During .he long winters when
II was % COLI that nobody but the
men who we're forced to work dared
to go out .rto the forest and the
mines, ! spen. my time ever my man
uscripts. ! believe that | saved my
self from insanity. | also grew to be
kind of lay PRIEST for the prisoners
they came % me for advice whenever
they cord ard sometimes they even
approached me as one who had the
power to gite spiritual advice.
tried to do so even though | was not
ordained.
"We only heard the fsintest echo
Of the war between Russia and Japan
when it started and from that time
on our guards and the governor gave
us to believe that Russia was
sweeping the Japanese into the sea.
Imagine oursurprise. therefore, when
one day we heard the sound of firing
frorl thu harbor and very shortly we
saw all Of the prison settlement guards
run into the woods, We felt as the
Indians must have felt when they
saw Columbus and his ships In the
iharbor at San Salvador.
"The rest you know. We are here;
that's all We expect to be sent to
Shanghai, where the Russian consul
will do with us as he thinks best
Maybe we are all beginning life over
again; maybe this is merely change
of prison keepers If II is, at least
we can welcome the variety"
That was the emf of the interview
that Prof. Vladlslav KopientschlS
lgave at the little Japanese hotel in
Yokohama Three days afterward
Jail of the refugees from Sakhalin save
1.-THE professor were put on steamer
for Shanghai, where they may or may
not have been delivered to the Rus
Isian cousul. The genia, French con-
isul at Yokohama seemed to have
winked nj the professors case and to
have allowed him to disappear with
out noise. At any rate he was heard
from a few months later when the
news of his residence in Gotemba
crept into the Japanse press,
Whether Prof Kropientschk ever
published the books that he said he
had written never became known, at
J least to those foreigners in Japan
, who were interested in his case. He
knew that he dared not return 70
Russia and 1t is evident that he chose
: to become the man of mystery about
} lwhom the peasants of Sagami pro-
Vince In the mountains at the foot ol
, Full could spin tales for theil
children's hearing New York Suh.