The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-02-25
THE BLACK HOLE OF
GALATA IN RUMANIA
"simion died one night.

Con the following day we were
made to take off our clothes to have
them exposed to the vapour of an en-
CINE boiler. What was the use of this
caress, when it would have required
fire and flood to cleanse this single
cell!
ut also came to pass that the war
ders and all the prison staff ceased
to come to us. They kept out of the
way. They disappeared. The serv-
ice was performed by soldiers who,
as you know, are good for anything.
"Still it was the prisoners, ingen-
iously intoxicated for the occasion,
who removed Simion from his bed,
sprinkled him with lime, then buried
him.
Finally this happened, this same
day: one after the other, Vasili the
robber, Fedor the pickpocket, and
Wasja the politician fell sick.
"No one troubled about them. l
have said that we no longer saw the
officials. They, the spiders, were
waiting in shelter at the ends of their
WSUS LUZ ILlc plAoVhSAos
"The state of the three stricken
men became rapidly worse. And in
the cell three delirious men began to
shout They each bawled some es-
sential scrap of their earthly destiny.
Wasja, who had been condemned be-
cause functionary had wished to rob
him of his little field and he had re-
sisted (that sort of thing is called
politics, and perhaps not wrongly,
bawled at the top of his voice: Good
Right is Good Right
"Vasili thought that he was sur
rounded by the gendarmes and he
struggled with loud shouts and sum-
moned the robbers god to his assist
ance.
"As to the pickpocket, Fedor, he
complained with much bawling
against his comrade, the police com
missioner, with whom he thought
that he was sharing the stolen booty
as was his custom, as many of his
| like were accustomed to. do in Rou
mainland who had swindled him in
the sharing out. Ut was the settle
ment of this affair, not the affair it
self, which had brought about his in
carceration.)
"Then the shouters became calm,
and for very good reason: at the
end of the sixth day they were all
three in the lime, and three white
| ii st,t fha <,x-fh
"And we. we were ever awaiting,
our heads eaten by fear, the con-
iemnation which comes from within.
"There were at this time sixteen
other cases Of typhus in the various
black holes of Galata, 1t was Spiru
who told me, and he only said what
he had seen and was sure Of.
"a white-haired peasant was watch
ing the fifteen days of detention
which he had yet to serve, diminish
ing slowly, so slowly. Fifteen days
wasn't much, but all the same the
matter was urgent he only had
three more days to go. The evening
but one before the day of his release,
he was lowered into the white paste
which burns even to the bones.
"The commandment Constantine Ger
nat, director general of the prisons of
great Roumania, was returning from
his domain of Bessarabia, when he
was informed of the spread of the
typhus epidemic-which he had
known for long time.
"He shuddered: That was becoming
serious; and he hurried, putting
everything on one side to telegraph
these simple words to Galata: Until
further orders, no more convicts from
Galata for work on my fields
GAS he knew that precautions must
be taken against contagion."