7 Works in a Dungeon.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 December 1922, Page 1

7 Works in a Dungeon.

. “RED” OUTRAGE ON A BRITON. . CONSTANTINOPLE, Sept. 29. After seven weeks imprisonment by the Bolshevist Extraordinary Commission, tho Cbc-Ka, in a verminous underground dungeon, which lie shared with 12 to 18 other men at Tiflis, Mr Claude A. Solly, representative of the Shell Transport and Trading Company in the Caucasus, has just arrived in Constantinople. “I was arrested without warning or explanation at Ba.toum,” he tells, me, “and taken under an armed guard to Tiflis. After being tlnve a week I was charged with having acted a.s a spy for tiie British.

“J denied this, a ).,ng examination of the papers seized at my office having failed to-provide any evidence, the Clie-ICa yielded to the efforts which the Britsli Government and Colonel Boyle, of the Shell Company, were making on my behalf, ‘and .released me.

“The dungeon in which I was conlined was 14 feet belo.v the ground. It was a nauseating, stinking place. It swarmed with cockroaches, lice, ants, and rats. “\Yu were allowed out only ten mi mi tea a day oil five days a week. Washing and sanitary arrangements were almost non-existent, one trickling tap running r>’ hem a day being shared by 70 prisoners “Tho food was brown bread and hot watcir with rico once- a day. “Of the other Englishmen imprisoned by -the Bolsheviks on similar charges to myself. Mr J. B. Dodge and Mr Lawrence were released at the same time and left the Caucasus with me. An Englishman hern at Petrograd named Edwards and a man named Odell are still confined in Tiflis in tho utmost squalor. “The Bolsheviks are most arrogant and hostile towards the British. Ihe Central Governnie.it oi Moscow has no control over the local Clie-Ka.” Meanwhile Colonel Joseph Boyle, of the Shell Company, accompanied by his secretary. Captain Hiil. is on his wav across the Black Sra to Jiat on in to bring pressure to hear on the Bolsheviks "to release Mr Sn!'y, unaware that itliis has already hern done. As there is a danger that Lie Bolsheviks may arrest Colonel Bo.vle under some trumped-up charge on his arrival, < fforts are being ma le by wireless to get him transferred to some returning vessel before hi- slop reaches Batoum. -