The Atherstone, Nuneaton, and Warwickshire Times. — 1883-12-15 (Atherstone, Warwickshire, England)

TREATMENT OF RUSSIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS.  The Paris correspondent of the Mats telegraphs the contents of • document, "written throughout with the prisoner's blood, " describing the treatment of Nihilists condemned to hard labour and confined in the Troubetskoi bastion. The writer describes the horror of the cell, its damp walls, the little iron table, the bed, consisting of a pack of:straw, and a rug "as thin as paper, " the faititi atmosphere the narrow little window, choked up with dust and dirt, the foul pail on one side, the jug of bad water on the other. And, worse than all, there are no books, no paper—there is absolutely nothing to do—nothing to relieve the complete solitude and silence. The prison diet is often mouldy, sometimes in a state of putrefaction and never sufficient. Dysentery and scurvy soon ensue, reducing the strongest to a state of the greatest prostration : In the prison the strongest soon become anwini; and those who are too feeble to rise for the common necessities of life are not provided with the ordinary appliances used for the sick, and therefore wallow for days in the most repulsive filth. Thus human beings rot away, and give off odours as of dead bodies before life is extinct. Even those who become mad under the stress of this fearful suffering and solitude are not treated any better. They are strapped down and beaten with the knout. All night their fierce yells rebound through the prison, and their Number is daily increasing, as is also that of the suicides. The writer cannot give all the names ; but he mentions Issaiey is. hnvin, completely lost his reason, and Madame Terentieva who died in a mysterious manner. It is said that she was outraged and then poisoned, so as to hide the crime, the doctor certifying that the chemist gave the poison by mistake; but no enquiry has been instituted or blame inflicted. Another lady is now dying of phthisis, contracted in this prison. Some of the prisoners are kept in underground cells, where a ray of sunlight never enters, where offensive water oozes through the walls, and fungus grows on all sides. Here lived Kiviatkovski. Priessiniakov, and Stichanov before they were hung. In these dungeons the rats are the worst enemies, and yet it is in one of these cells that Miline. Jakimova and her infant child are now confined. Day and night this lady has to watch and fight, so that the rats should not devour her baby. There is little or nothing that she can eat, yet she has to feed her child, and in spite of all, has not lost courage.  A shocking tragedy was committed in Gasow en Friday afternoon. An actriss named Mi-s Grace Hamilton, who had been engaged to t ko part in the pantomime at the Gra,id Theatre, Glasgow, on Thursday iiiht, IVO visited at her lodgings by a gentleman named McPliersm, whom she had known some years, and about half-an-hour Afterwar(l9 a pi•tol slint WM heard. The land. lady went into the room, and observing that Miss Hamilton appeared to be very pale, asked McPherson what he had been doing, and he replied that he had only been frightening her. On going tort ards Miss Hamilton the landlady, however, discovered that she was dead, having been shot in the neck. She went to call the police, aid had no sooner left the room than McPherson shot himself dead.