A CONVICT'S ESCAPE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 149, 15 June 1908, Page 4

A CONVICT'S ESCAPE.

A SIBERIAN DRAMA. STORY OF XIIE TSAR'S PRISONGANOS. TOLD BY THE ESCAPEE. Auckland, June 10. '• Yes, I escaped. 1 have come lo your country fur tlie shelter of your English llag. I escaped after many .wars. Ah, it is from hell unto the v I peace of Co<| I enme.'' A man of under 411 wars of age, but looking nearer jll, was'the speaker, and he had come to .New Zealand from a

Russian convict prison in Silieria, whence he had e.vaped, having staked liis life on liis slender chances and won. " You may write my name down as Sehcpkin—it's only part of it, and I've taken a new name in my freedom," he went on to sav to a Herald reporter. At tilst he declined to say anything about his experiences, lint iinally consented to '■ let you peaceful people in this happy country know how happy you should In.- compared with the hopeless souls in the living death and iron cruelty of the detested Siberia. Look"— lie rolled up bis shirt sleeve to the shoulder and showed bis brand "C.K.A." branded into the flesh with a hot iron. " That means exile convict," be went on to say, " and it. would have been on my face, one letter on each cheek and the other on the forehead, had not the branding officer been bribed. Well, 1 carry other murks, too—marks of the knout and the lash, for I escaped before and was caught." "Y'ou speak English well," observed his listener.

"I think I do," he replied. "I was educated iii your language in Kussia, and perhaps forgot, much, but since my esea]ie I have been on Knglisli ships and in Australia, and that helps me. My father was a wealthy land-owner, and I was sent to the high school at Kazan and afterwards to the University of Moscow, where 1" formed one of a zcmlychestra—that is, a club or land group of students from the same province. We were a riotous lot in those careless days. Nihilism was rife, and J became one of a little group who used to meet in secret to prepare revolutionary papers. We were only youths and did not understand what' fire we were playing with. " We were betrayed and our premises were raided, and I and several others were caught. The trial was a mockery, youth or ignorance was no defence, and we were condemned to ten years' imprisonment. -My friends and* relatives tried every possible means to secure my pardon, but in vain. My father sought to influence 'the Tsar, buf was presented with a police order not to travel beyond the boundaries of his own province. 1 was shut in, the Moscow forwarding prison, and was almost starved for a week, and then with a lot of others was shut in a cage on a barge for the journey to Tomsk. " My companions seemed to have been brought from the worst dungeons in j Russia. They were attired in flic 11111 ■ i est clothing, and were indescribably dirty. At Tomsk we were disembarked and chained in a gang. We were sub' jected to all sorts of indignities, and were lashed if we limped. We were reviled in the coarsest language by our guards, and were left to sleep en the cold ground in our filthy rags: and yet we were 'political,' supposed: to be treated with less severity than the ordinary convict. ''One prisoner, a mere lad and in delicate health, fell down in utter exhaustion, lie was lashed till the blood dyed his clothes, and be lost consciousness. Do you wonder that our hearts were bitter?" Continuing his story. Schepkin said thi' gang were marched to the mines, and, upon arrival, it was found that the usual ollicial blunder bad been made and. instead of being sent to the mines, he and several others of the same gang had really been condemned to the prison fortress at Schlusselburg, on an island of the Neva, near Lake Ladoga—the prison where, common rumour had it in liussia, there was a dungeon, through which a deep stream Unwed into the Neva, and many a prisoner went out through the flood gate a corpse. The error, however, was "rectified" by an ollicial, who calmly erased the name of the prison on the. ollicial documents and substituted "Siberia." "Shortly afterwards," he went on to say, " there was a mutiny, and 1 was mixed up in it, and for our trouble we were drafted to the Kara mines, and to one of the \w.l>t places then'. We were chained to wheelbarrows, and from dawn to dark we were worked in gangs like so many cattle, beaten and insulted on every possible pretext. The shanie- > ful indignities heaped upon both male and female prisoners are unpuhlishable. "Could the people in this swe t country see but one of the thousands of tortures inllicted on the prisoners at Kara tlicy would go on their knees dailv in gratitude. 1 take oil' my hat to your Knglisli Hug. I go oil my' knees bctorc it, I thank your country for the haven of refuge 1 find." The Herald representative mentioned theffialuralisaliou law, and the Russian became excited. '' You tell me I can become a subject of your Knglisli Crown?" he questioned eagerly. " Yes, after certain formalities." " And then I am the same as all you people? 1 claim the English Hag as my Hag? Could 1 be under its protection in another countrv?"

lie was assured that, once he became a British subject, the protection of the flag was his everywhere. The intimation seemed to come as a relief after some great suspense, as he fell back on his lied and gave way to unrestrained sobbing, so that the interview was interrupted for some time. It was plain, too, that tfa Dan was suffering from utter breakdown, and it was with difficulty he told the rest of his storv.

When he resumed, he said that after about .seven years at Kara he saw a chance of escape and made a dash for the taiga, (forest), being fired upon by three guards as he ran. He gained the shelter of the woods in safety, and was at large for two months, when the approach of winter drove him out of the forest to search for food, and he was recaptured near Xertchiusk and returned to Kara. He was sentenced again, but the sentence was not communicated to him. He supposed it. was exile for life, for soon afterwards he was brand-

After that escape he was heavily ironed continuously, and lie bears the marks of tin- knout laid on unsparingly upon his return to Kara, and will carry them all his life. Jjy day he was chained to the heavy, low-framed carts used in conveying goods and material from place to place, and at night he was chained to the wall, and occasionally with a wheelbarrow chained alongside to his body. The food was the roughest and coarsest, but still it was plentiful enough, and so the daily round went on. year after year, the convicts' treatment depending on the temper of the guards, fragments of the world's news filtered through occasionally, but for the most parts the convicts remained in utter ignorance of anything outside the prison's fiendish practices. •■Hundreds of incidents I could give voii." he said. "I have seen a convict's r.ice slashed with a knife l.v a drunken guard, and the poor wretch had to suffer in silence. Women working at the mines have been degraded in the most fiendish manner in front of scores of brutal guards. Men have been forced to submit nameless indignities for the

amusement of guards sifter some ilnink-i-ii debauch. I'risonors have been murdered liy the guards ill fits of temper—iiinl not'liing was wit said—in fuel, wo envied the murdered ones their places. •iOighl years I went through Unit ilnily round of torture. After my recapture I kin'iv nothing of the outside world. Iml did not even know of the trouble between Kussin ami Japan. One day r was released from my ehains to dii some especially lieiivy manual lalmr. U was spring time, ;ind the snows were im-11injr awav, and the. eumilr.v looked -ii fre-li. A'mad rush of blood surged into inv brain, and before I scirccly knew what. I was doing 1 had knocked inv guard over with a stone 1 was lift ing, "and ran. I heard the shots and I lie whi/.z o! liullets as in a dream. I was hit on the arm. hut did not feel I he wound. I was mud with the in-i„-iic:ilinii of the lluuiylil of liberty. I would In- killed lielore ,1 was taken again. I fi-ll as one tommilliiig; siiieid-; 1 though I was lo die. -I was hunted l.v dog.-, but I ballled tliem in the forest, and wandered for weeks and weeks, living on leaves. 1 climbed trees and snared birds and ate tliem raw. After a while 1 fell in with two men. themselves escaped convicts. The country there is terrorised by esescaped prisoners—men capable of almost anv kind of crime-but lortunatelv the two 1 met were kind-hearted men. and Ihev helped nie with food and

gave me a knife. Hiding by day and prowling by night, with almost daily narrow escapes, I got down near Yakutsk, on the Lena river, and then fell I ill; but some peasants who found me sheltered me, and nursed me. flow good their kindness was after those long weary years! ''One of the peasants was engaged for some service by two Englishmen who were travelling through Yakutsk and Okhotsk, and he told them about mo. If it hadn't been for them 1 might be back at Kara mines or dead by now. Nobly they helped me. They spared no expense and smuggled me through, at one time concealed in the bottom of a cart, at another as an English servant with a forged passport. | How my lieart beat into my mouth when the passports were being examined, but those two Englishmen spent gold like water to licl'p an unfortunate —such is (he chivalry of the English. I was smuggled on board a little sailing Iwat at Okhotsk, and finally got to Tokio, in Japan. Then those magnificent friends found me again, helped me liberally with money, told me to make for the English colonies, and mentioned New Zealand; and so by a roundabout way 1 came here—and 1 am free. Rcheipkin is now in kindly hands at Auckland. His frame, wasted by years of suffering, is now being built up to health ami strength again. Curiously enough, tile publication of the convict's story has led to a little re-union of exSiberian prisoners. Two other men who had escaped came along to offer greetings to the newest arrival, and they report that \lhere are two or throe Russians in North Auckland who escaped from Siberia, and all are now respected citizens of the Dominion.