AT THE KARA MINES. Political Criminals Driven to Madness OR Suicide.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 406, 28 September 1889, Page 5

AT THE KARA MINES. Political Criminals Driven to Madness OR Suicide.

Mr George Kennan, in the new number of the 'Century,' gives a heartrending picture of the treatment of political prisoner** in the Kara penal establishment. The Russian Government began sending State prisoners to the mines in 1873, where the y made them associate with common felons. A.t first the treatment was fairly good, but in 1880 new and stringent regulations were made. Prisoners were forbidden to communicate with any of their relatives. In a word, ab a stroke the whole outside world vvas shut to them. They u ere forbidden to go out in the fresh air. The * iree command,' as it was called, was abolished. The prisoners were sent back to prison, their heads were shaved, and they were put into chains and leg fetters. The humane Governor remonstrated arid resigned. The prisoners were in despair. Foul air, vermin, and the innumerable mi&eries of prison life fell to their Job in place of their comparative freedom of the earlier years. The kind-hearted Governor told the Government that if they wanted an officer who would treat the politicals in ac cordance with the instructions they must send the hangman, and not him. Meanwhile, the le&ulc was a terrible

Epidemic op Suicide and Insanity among the politicals. One of the suicides was a young lawyer, 33 years of age, named Eugene Semyonofski, a barrister ot >St. Petersburg, and a man of high character and ability. After four or five years' penal servitude his health gave way and he put a pistol to his brain on hearing that he had to go back to prison and to the chains and " leg-fetters. On his table lay a note to his father, of which we give tho following extract : — ' it may be that some one who reads the words " they are going back to prison " will compare us to sheep, submissively presenting their throats to the knife of the butcher ; but such a comparison would be a grievously mistaken one. The only means of escape from such a situation as ours is in flight— and how and whither could we fly, in a tempeiarure of 35 degrees below zero, and without any previous preparation for such an alarming undertaking? Tho reason why no preparations have been made you know, if you received the letter that I wi ote you last August. IMy own personal determination was to attempt an escape if the order for our return to prison should come in the spring, when it would be possible to escape, and to do it, not on the spur of the moment, but after serious preparation. It has not, however, happened so. In the meantime 1 feel that my physical strength is failing day by day. I know that my weakness mu&D soon have its effect on my mental powers, and 1 am threatened with the danger of becoming a complete imbecile — and all this while I am living outside the prison. The uestion arises, what would become of me in prison ? My whole life rests on the hope ot returning some time to Russia and serving, with all my soul, the causo of right and justice to which I long ago devoted myself; but how can that cause bo served by a man who is mentally and physically wrecked ? When tlie hope of rendering such service is taken away from me, what is there left ? Personal selfjustification ? But before the moment comes for anything like complete satisfaction of that desire, they can put me ten times to the torture, I have therefore come to the conclusion that there is no longer anything to live for — that I have earned the right, at last, to put an end to sufferings that have become aimless and useless. I have long been tired —deathly tired— of life; and only the thought of home has restrained me, hitheito, from self-destruction. I know that I am about to cause terrible grief, Sasha, to you, and to all who love me ; but is not your love great enough to forgive the suicide ot a man tortured to the last extremity ? Understand that, for God's sake ! I have been literally tortured to death during these late years. For the sake of all you hold deal*, I beseech you to forgire me ! You must know that my last thoughts are of you — that if I had a little more strength I would live out my life, if only to save\ou from further suffering ; but my strength is exhausted. There is nothing left for me to do but to go insane or die ; < and the latter alternative is, after all, better than the former.' Very soon after Semyonof&ki's suicide, Mr Rodin, another political convict, poisoned himself to death by drinking the < water in which he had soaked the heads of matches ; Mr Uspenski (Oospen'&kee) hanged himself in the bathhouse ; and Mtidame Kavalefskaya, sister of one of the besfc-kno\vn economists in Russia, went insane, shrieked constantly, broke the windows of her cell, and was so violent that it became necessary to confine herin a straightjacket.