The Warwickshire Herald. — 1890-03-06 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

TERRIBLE STORY FROM SIBERIA.  SUICIDES AND HUNGER STRIKES.  The ghastly story Of the flogging end the subse. I qu-ent suicide :".! ladiei who, as political prisoners, I were incarcerated at Kant, in Eastern Siberia, is now, says • rims correspondent, fully confirmed. It appears that the tragedy which happened in November, 1889, was the outcome of a long struggle between the authorities and the female prisoners entrusted to their care. More than a year ago the female prisoners lodged • formal complains against Masnkoff, the director of their prison at Kars. He had, in • meet unwarrantable manner, insulted and brutally treated one of their companions, Madame SoluzeffKovalsky. This lady was about to be transferred from the Kara prison to a I Nom at Vcrkne Udinsk. Acting under orders given by Maankoff, an officer named I3obroveky, whose ordinary business it is to attend to common law criminals, broke into Madame Soluzeff - Kovalsky's cell. Bobrovsky was accompanied by several soldiers.. and he came so unexpectedly and at so early an hour that Madame Soluzeff • Kovaleky was still In bed. There was nothing to prevent the officer from withdrawing for a few moments so as to enable the prisoner to rise and dress herself. Bobroveky and his soldiers were not, however, actuated by any such sense of delicacy or even of common decency. They rudely seized their victim, pulled her out of bed, and dragged her, while still only in her nightdress, through the passages to the offices of the prison. Here,amid the coarsest insults, she was stripped and a convict's dress put upon her. On hearing of this outrage her prison companions entered • formal complaint, but received no answer. Then the prisoners resolved to resort to that most terrible of protests which the extreme character of the suffering endured in Siberia alone can have suggested—a "hunger strike." A long and fearful experience has *hewn that, as a general rule, the Government pays no attention to the grievances of the exiles unless some scandal is produced by the cruel death of one or more of the victims. Hence the women of the Kars prison resolved to starve themselves to death unless the director, Masukoff, was removed. This, their first hunger strike, lasted 18 days, and only ended when Masukoff informed the prisoners that he had tendered his resignation. The fact was true; Masukoff had resigned; but then the Governor-General, Baron Korf, had refused to accept his resignation. Everything, therefore, remained as before, and the women prisoners made • second hunger strike. This time it only lasted eight days, for Masukoff ranted them he had received • telegram from the Governor • General accepting his resignation and giving him orders to proceed to another prison. The news was • deliberate falsehood, invented in order to reducer the prisoners to take food. It nevertheless shewed how much the Siberian authorities fear cases of death due to voluntary starvation. When there remained no longer any doubt as to the deception practised upon them,the women organised their third and what proved to be their most desperate hunger strike. It lasted a full 22 days, and naturally many, in fact all, of the women would have died before the expiration of that time had they not been fed artificially. What this means can be left to the imagination of the reader. It was only done by the exercise of shocking violence. Soldiers and gaolers had to hold down the unfortunate women while the food was forced upon them in an unnatural and mechanical manner. By these extreme measures the aatborities frustrated the prisoners' design. It was at this juncture that Madame Nahyda Sihida, whose death was recorded in the first news received from Kara, resolved to sacrifice herself. She determined to insult the director an such a manner as would bring down upon herself a sentence of death followed by execution by hanging. But, at the same time, the sensation this must cause would, she imagined, render it impossible for Meankoff to remain at his post. It was on the 22nd day of voluntary starvation that Madame Sihida sent, by one of the guards, a request to see the director upon an urgent affair. Admitted to blasukoff's presence, she at once called him • villain, and smartly boxed his WM. She WAS instantly seized, removed from the quarters occupied by the political prisoners, and locked up in the common convicts' prison. A report describing her act was sent to the Goya-nor-General. This took place In August. A5Zk a long correepondence,the director of the Kara prisons received from the