RUSSIAN EXILE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 487, 9 July 1890, Page 3

RUSSIAN EXILE.

4 Stepniak: ’ Describes the Arctic Zone WHERE THE CZAR SENDS HIS POLITICAL Opponents.

‘ Stepniak ’ describes in the * New Re view, the horrors of Northern Siberia, to which Mr Kennan did not penetrate, but whoso icy plains enfold some of the worst terrors of exile.

Nova Zembla, which is visited by men only during the summer months, has a much milder climate than the arctic region of Siberia. In the former the average temperature for a year is 13deg. F., with 7deg. below zero for the three winter months; while in Vorko-Yansk the average both for the winter and autumn months is 31deg. F. below zero, the average temperature for the three months of eternal night, December, January and February, sinking to 53deg. F. below zero, which is fully 13deg. below the freezing point of mercury. As to the average temperature for the year, it is only One Degree F. Above Zero,

the lowest temperature that has been observed at any point of the Northern Hemisphere. During the short summer the temperature rises, rapidly reaching 56deg. F. But with the warm season come the mosquitoes, which are a plague of these regions more difficult to endure than cold. 4 1 never would have believed,’ says the correspondent of the ‘ Husky Vedomosty ’ (Moscow), who had been exiled to these parts, * that the insects could appear in such swarms. They literally darkened the light, tilling the air with an incessant noise, covering, as with a black mantle, our horses, whose flanks were soon bleeding all over. Maddened with pain, the horses kicked and roared, but seeing that all was unavailing, they dropped their heads and submitted to the inevitable. In vain we tried to proteco ourselves with veils, travelling, notwithstanding the hot weather, in winter gloves and overcoats. The mosquitoes penetrated through the sleeves under the shirts, stinging the breast and the body, which ached as if burned with tire. The more we struggled to get rid of our tormentors the more we opened the way to thousands moie of them. On arriving at the huts of the Yakuts, we kindled a great fire, which made such a smoke that it pricked the eyes and choked tho breath, though we lay stretched on the earthen lloor. The mosquitoes disappeared, but as soon as the smoke dispersed a little, new swarms penetrated into the hut, covering all of us thickly.’ ‘ Stepniak ’ then describes some d imes of which the punishment is banishment to this Inferno of ice Let tis begin with Isaac Sklovsky, a journalist of Jewish extraction. He was a man of position—the editor of the 4 Odessa Leaflet,’ a popular provincial paper. The charge against him was this : Having made the acquaintance of an Odessa revolutionist, named Dudin, who afterwards turned informer, he purchased from him two pamphlets, issued by the secret printing office, for the sum of 30 kopecks, which makes about 8d in English coin. When a domiciliarj' search was made at Sklovsky’s house the pamphlets Were Not Found, but he did not deny having purchased them, and refused to disclose what he had done with them. For this offence ho was kept in prison for about a year, and then released on bail at the beginning of 1885, pending the decision upon his case. In the summer of 1886 the decision came, and he was arrested again and marched off straight to Eastern Siberia for five years. Because he was a Jew he was sent to Sredtie-Kolymsk. where he is still. The case of two boys, Lauda and Hornstoin, also Jews, who when arrested were the first 15, the second 16 years of age, is more shocking still. They were both studying in the Odessa gymnasium, when, in the beginning of August, 1885, a certain Fedorsher arrived in the town from Geneva. He had beer, slightly compromised in some early propaganda business before he left Russia, so that on returning he had to be careful to keep out of the reach of the police. As the latter got wind of his arrival in Odessa he had to hide himself for some time in the houses of his friends, as is often the case with 4 illegal ’ peoplo. One of these friend*, not being sure that his own house was not watched by the police, had the unfortunate idea of taking Fedorsher one night to the lodgings of the two boys, who were his relatives, as the safest refuge. Of course the boys asked no questions, and were satisfied with the explanation that their guest wanted simply a lodging for a night or two, to avoid the expense of an hotel. Nobody thought of the possibility of the police coming to seek Fedorsher in the house of these children. But the police came on account of the boys themselves. Io was rumoured that in their gymnasium

Some Sort of Propaganda was afloat, arid in one night 120 domiciliary visits were made to the houses of different pupils in order to discover some material proof of it. One of these visits was to Landa and Hornstein. When the police arrived the inmates were not yet in bed, and Fedorsher, on being asked who he was, explained that he was their neighbour, living a few doors off. They believed him, and he played the part he assumed so well that the police let him go. But when his littlo portmanteau, which he had to leave behind, was opened, a pared of revolutionary publications was discovered in it. This was sufficient for the arrest of the two boys, though it was clearly proved that they knew nothing about it. They were kept in the Odessa prison, one of the worst in the Empire, in solitary confinement for about a year and a-half, and then fhe police, without any trial, pronounced upon them the verdictof fiveyears' exile to Eastern Siberia, as people dangerous in the existing order and implicated in revolutionary agitation. When the monstrous sentence was read to them, the younger of the boys, Landa, exclaimed ‘How ? Am I also a revolutionist, a man dangerous to the authorities ?’ At this the gendarme .smiled and answered in these very words, ‘No, certainly you are not. But you may become so some day.’