AN APPALLING PICTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 187, 11 September 1909, Page 3

AN APPALLING PICTURE.

STORY OP "THE TERROR IN RUSSIA." , Prince Kropotkin las "written a little book in which there is a moving picture of the sufferings of the crowded denizens of the Russian prisons. In 1905 the average daily figure for all the prisons of the Empire was 85,(500; in 1909 it wa 8 181,137, the holding capacity of all the prisons being only 107,000 persons. The result of the overcrowding has been the development of scurvy and typhus in alarming proportion. Even in the great prison of Moscow twenty-five prisoners are confined in a room twelve paces long by five wide, and the time allowed for taking fresh air is only fifteen minutes. Inmates attacked by scurvy remain in chains, and arc continually thrashed by the warders. Members of the Duma who have served their time, in this prison say that the dress and linen delivered to the prisoners ore falling to pieces, and the straw with which the pillows are filled is only changed once a year. There arc no mattresses and no blankets.

SLEEPING ON THE BARE, DAMP FLOORS. A prisoner, writing from the Vyatka transfer prison, on the way to Siberia, says: ''"We all sleep on the bare floor and 110 blankets are supplied. The damp is awful, and the rooms are full of parasites. The politicals aTe kept together with the common law convicts. The food is execrable. All meals are served within the space of four hours, and lor twenty hours we remain without food, shut up in our rooms, with windows tightlv fastened, and are not allowed to go out of our rooms for any reason whatever." ' *ve, SHOOT TO KILL. 'At the Tiflis central prison 403 political and common law prisoners detained there wrote to a Duma deputy complaining of the abominable sanitary conditions and unlimited brutality of the prison authorities, adding: "Four men have been, shot during the last month bv the sentinels for having approached the windows, the order issued by the commander of the castle in January last being: 'Shoot without any warning at the slightest uproar, and as soon as a prisoner approaches the window aim at the head so as to occasion death.'" TYPHOID PATIENTS IX CHAINS. The shocking way in which typhus patients arc transferred to an infirmary is related by a lady in Central Russia, whose letter is published as typical by the., review Russkoye Bogatsvo: "Last summer we were occasionally in the yard of the infirmary of our zemstvo. I 'aw two carts entering the yard, accompanied by soldiers. Approaching these carts. I saw that they contained typhoid patients who had been brought to the infirmary from the prison. It was a dreadful sight, and made my hair stand on end. One can hardly believe that in the twentieth century, with out present civilisation, me» could be treated in such a way and brought in such a condition. The men, all unconscious, lay like logs in the cart, knocking their heads against its wooden frame. They had not even put a handful of straw under their heads. The men were lying almost \m upon the other. Some were in the ii"t agony; two of them died an hour or one and a-half hours later. All of them were in chains. I saw how the two dead were carried to the chapel—both were fettered. I asked why the chains had not been taken from the dead: it would have been done if thev were dogs. They replied that the chains can be taken off only after the death certificate has been ; signetl by the prison doctor. Accustomed ; continually to beat the prisoners, the warders began to do the same in the 1 infirmary."