THIS SIBERIAN EXILES.

Kumara Times, Issue 509, 15 May 1878, Page 2

THIS SIBERIAN EXILES.

The exiles who liv‘e .in Siberian mines (writes..the.Pull iiro convicts- of,-fche..-worn type, and’ political off -uclers ;of the ; bes%{ nThe murderer ibr his villauy, the; and honest Polish rebel/Tor Jffs patriot-i-m, are demned equally worthy of the punishment, of-low ,They ngjrpr see the light qf the ,day, Jfl but: and sleep all tbe.yqar ropnd in itho^ depths of the earth, ex-tiucfing.silyejr,hr g quicksilver under the eyes/ of masters, who have orders not to spare them. Iron, gates,) g\tarde r d.- by setitrie:;, close the lories, or streets, at the bottom of the shafts, tip. miners are railed' off from one another in gangs of twenty. They sleep yvithiu recesses hewn out of the fbcb—very. . kennels—into which they mnht creepon all-fours. Prince Joseph LuboAi'ir.ski, who was authorised to visit oiie;of< t-hei mines of the Oural at a time-when ; it ■ was not suspected lie would ever publish' an account of his exploration in French, ■ has given an appalling account of -what be saw. Convicts racked with the • joint pains which quicksilver produces ; men whose hair and eyebrows had dropped off, aud who were gaunt-as skeletons, were kept to hard' labour under the lash. They .have, only two lioli la vs a-year (Christmas and Easter), and all other days '(Sundays' irtclacled)i ; 'my must toil uutil exhausted nature r ibs Uicm of the. use .of tbeicUimba,. when they are hauled up to.die.dn the infirmary. Five.-years- in the quicksi I vet mines are tbm k*Vrrau . d ;10 lato an, apparent.sexagenarian,, '■•nt rmn ; luivo, he‘.;)i known/.t’o s|rnw]fi, ''••'l for. lea yea s. - 'N6 I i»»fc serve l .! in the initios is. ever.allowed to ref iru home j the most he can. obtain in the way of grace.is leave to come up and work in the road gangs, and,,it is mm promise of this favour as a reward f-:i' in luff-y wtiich’ o{Kffab.’Sg t than t!ia lash to matntain, cUsc.ipljpe. Women are employed in the mines. .a^.

lifters, and get no bettor treatment than tho men, Polish lad if.: - by tluv dozen have bee a sent dawn to rot and die, while tho St. -Petersburg, journals were, declaring that th y were living as free colourts; and, more recently, ladies connected v.uh Nihilist conspiraces have been consigned to the mines in pursuance of a sentence •of hard labour. It.must always be understood that a sentence of ioibtaian hard labour moans death; The Hn-rS.iau Government well knows:th-it to live for years in the atrocious tortures of the mines is humanly impossible, hind consequently, tthe use of a euphemism to replace the term capital puiiidu/ient is merely of a piece with the hypocrisy of all official statements in Russia. What must he the plight of prof fcsors, journalists, landowners, who have been conderaed to die by inches for the crime of -emitting- Liberal opinions,,■. which in England bring a man to great honour und comfort on every side ? Perhaps those English Liberals who Pel kindly towards Eusslan hunianitambism would pick up a notion or two if they could interview some of. their Muscovite -colleagues earning the. regard, for their progressive theoi-ies underground, with ■a drunketf priest to whine them, homilies.