WHAT HUNGER STRIKES ARE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 35, 6 March 1909, Page 3

WHAT HUNGER STRIKES ARE.

The news cabled recently from St. I'etel->burg that a hunger strike has •broken out amount the political prisoners conlincd in the terrible Schlussolburg Fortress serves to call attention to what is, perhaps, the most remark--1 able social manifestation of this or any other age. Of hunger strikes in this? country (says a Home paper) we know nothing, i Imagine, if you can, a harsh prison (governor, at, say, Portland, given to inllicling upon the convicts meiviless Hoggings and tortures unmentionable entirely on his own responsibility. Then imagine the sullWrs collectively abstaining from all food as a protest, even to the point of starving themselves to death.

That is/the hunger strike as it is! practised in Russia 1 to-day amongst, those prisoners who are known as "politicals" or "intellectuals."' Usually it achieves its object. Xot infrequently, too, the prison governor against whom it is directed loses his lit'e as a consequence, being assassinated by friends of the strikers outside. After this fashiou died Coneval Mezeulzetr. whose "execution" was undertaken by a young artillery officer, Kva.vtchinshy. who afterwards resided many years in England, and heeamo

known' in the political and literary worM of London muter the name ot Sergiu» Stepniak. Not liifrcijuenUy the, hunger strikers aye 'wvmieu. Tndwd. it was they "who originated the idea, the very first hunger strike on record lining undertaken l>v th« women convicts confined in the Kara .political prison, as a protest against thn Hogging to death of one of their inimlier. Madam Kigifla, "For sixteen days none of them tasted food. Tliev were then at the point of death. and' the aoveTuor. at his wits' end. was compelled' to resign, i"viously. it would not have' done for him to have allowed scores m" \vnnien._ some of whom had helon'".'d (o the highest families in Russia, lop • i'' l ol inanition before l\is eyos,