Nelson Chronicle, Colne Observer, and Clitheroe Division News. — 1897-10-01 (Nelson, Lancashire, England)

FEMALE CONVICTS FOR SIBERIA.  A RUSSIAN LOVE TRAGEDY. Within the last few days, says the Odessa eor respondent of the " Daily News," there have arrived here K.> female convicts from the central forwarding prisons at Moscow and Kharkoff, for embarkation to the penal island of Sakhalien. Nearly the whole of these wretched women have been condemned to deportation and hard labour on capital charges or other equally heinous crimes. About one-third of them are guilty of childmurder. Infanticide is always so rife in this country, and BO generally condoned by the RUMillll Juries in the cases of unmarried women, that the convicted mothers are seldom severely punished, except in such instances where the crime is aggravated by some peculiarly cruel and brutal featuree. There iis no more depressing sight than to see theft unfortunate creatures clad in coarse gray gaberdines, and in the worst cases their movements constrained by waist and ankle chains, escorted under a strung military guard from the railway prison vans at the quarantine station to the convict ship which is to carry them to the Far Last. There are among them women of all ages from 20 to 60; girls with innocent but sad and careworn faces ; young women of jpreposeessing but hardened features and callous demeanour; and middle-aged and elderly women af degraded and dejected appearance, and apparently utterly indifferent alike to their present surroundings and their future fate. About a score thee° female cony iota have been convicted of murdering their husbands, some of them no doubt driven to the capital crime by the brutal ill-usage which the Russian laws permit to the husband's "discretionary correction; " while others are the heroines—or the , victims—of more or leas romantic tragedies. Among those of the latter category whom I saw onWednesday there is a very beautiful woman of about 27 years of age, a lovely brunette, with dark, liquid eyes, and with a supple and perfect figure, which even the unsightly and baggy prison garb failed entirely to 3otioeal. On the convict's handsome face there was not a trues of compunction or remorse; her features wore the serene composure and immobility absolute indifference and fixed resignation. She was forced into a loveless marriage with a ianded proprietor, who, failing to win her wifely effections, made her life a burden by Lis studied brutality, and by occasionally lucking her in her apartments until she was well nigh famished. In a neighbouring proprietor the ill-used wife found a oympathetic friend, and the friendship ultimately ripened into a strong mutual affection. An elopement was clanclistinely planned between the lovers, and secretly betrayed by a maid-servant to the husband. The latter determined to surprise his wife in the act of leaving his Louse, and, at a midnight rendervoue, he had just entered the carriage provided by her protector when he appeared upon the scene and attempted, with many vile epithets, to forcibly draw his wife Lome again. Before her lover had time to intervene the desperate woman drew her revolver and shot her husband through the heart, killing him on the spot. For this crime the wife is etntenced to six years' forced labour in Sakhaliemi. In outline this case is illustrative of very many more for which ill-used but erring wives are every year banished to the penal horrors of Russia's far eastoru island. It is terrible to imagine or contemplate the awful tragedies of human life and huniau frailty through which those S. unfortunate women have passed ; some few of them may possibly work out their expiation arid return to their homes in Russia, but the great of thew.lriuk lower and lower under the demoralising and degrading surroundings .1 of their penal life,under their hard labour arid brutal chastisement, until a premature but merciful death puts an end to their miseries.  A