THE RUSSIAN MIX-UP.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 October 1918, Page 3

THE RUSSIAN MIX-UP.

RUSSIAN PRISONERS,

j ['per PRESS ASSOCIATION. COPYRIGHT.j | (Received This Dav at 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, October 2. I The ‘“Daily Chronicle's’’ Petrograd ' | correspondent reports that when the j Commandant found British prisoners h 0 ! ordered the Guards to drive them back, j saying, let them stifle that’s what’s wanted. Subsequently the overcrowding was fi o serious that the British and French were marched through the streets to Peter and Paul fortress where the commandant, firstly refused admittance because the cells were full. Eventually the prisoners were immured in the Bastion. New arrivals travelling the corridors, saw pallid faces , peering through peeping holes. The Guards said they wore mostly ex-officers and most of them had been in prison for over a month and had never been charged or examined. A. foul stench pervaded the prison. The Anglo-French < were broken into groups of eight and i distributed in the already overcrowded cels. The latter, which, under the old regime held a prisoner apiece, now holds twenty, who are obliged to sleep on the stone floor. They were allowed to receive, a few parcels periodically, hut the food then was nearly all rotten and discarded, through the rations being supplied only twice weekly. Some Russian ex-officcrs were absolutely literally starving. Anglo-French entered the prison on a Sunday night and received no’ food until a small allowance of soup wa s given at four on Thursday morning. It was painful to see strong men trying to conceal ,their hunger. The correspondent’s letter despatched the same day concluded —It is lieaitreiuling to see the prisoners straining their cars whenever there i.s a clanking of chains heard, raising hopes that food was coming. They were afraid to light their solitary candle lest they had no light when the soup comes. What the future has in store none knows or dares to speculate.