Sketcher. PRISON HORRORS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2090, 28 November 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Sketcher. PRISON HORRORS.

A l^idaiu'ot Scene in the Rus inn Capital. A 11 r- suv BastHiU Ciih Bi-nt,vtii Tun Ilnrr. — Davkhim. Dami'MlSs!, Filth — Jams — Slow Di \iu — The Penalty of Hm olu ton. It is n^ht i>i Sf. Petorbbnrg. The cloche have ju-t struck 2. The town is a«leep, and the atreeta Rilent but for a email gronp, pait in uniform, part in common dress, that emf rgPB silently from a great house near the deep and diu-k canal. After proceeding several blqclw, it turns into a little street, and threo of them consult in front of one of the long row of houses. A part of thfl force goes to the rear of the house, while tho others going to the front door arouse the porter. A few worda reduce him to ailent obedience. He opens the door, thoy enter and mount the etaircaae until they come to the door leading to tlio apartments of the family. The porter ringo the bell, then a second time when a woman's voice — the servant'n — ia heard, asking "who'i there?' The porter gives his name, and says he has a telegram for her ma3ier. She turns the key, the door i* opened, when tlio police push pagt tho balfdre^ed woman and swarm in. Everybody ia asleep. But the police go into all the 'rooms arousing the frightened women and paying no heed to the crying children thus suddenly awakened. The father dem<mda the meaning of the intrusion and asks for the warrant. The leader says he has sot brought it with him, but that is no matter. There ia no mistake. He wishes to flea, the gentleman's daughter in that bedroom. " But you will at least send your men out of the room. My wife tud daughter cannot dress in their presence." He refuses on the ground that the women might bide or conceal something that could be used as evidence agtiinst them. The father finding himself powerless nsks that bis protest be recoutcd. "Certainly, if you wish it," answeia the oflicer ; " but what difference will that make?" The mother and daughter aie mido to rise from their beds and dress before the men. When all the members of the household are up and clothed every adult is given to a policeman, while another is appointed to watoh the children, and the sea>ch hegin* Tho rooms are overhauled, bedclothes turned topsy-turvy, drawers opened, contents tumbled about, everything minuteiy examined — books, papers and especially private letters. The young lady, the daughter, is the cause of all this disturbance. She is suspected of oorretpondiug with a member of the revolutionary party. She watches all their doings unmoved, evidently assured that they will find nothing compromising. At length the police opens tbo drawers of a little cabinet aad in fumbling among its contents come across a bit of paper containing a name andan address. She had forgotten its existence. At light of it sue becomes painfully agitated, for, though there is nothing in it Lo hurt her, it taaj be the means of delivering another to imprisonment and exile. After glancing at it, the officer lays it aside and goes on with his inspection of the letters. This suggests to her a desperate expedient. At a single bound she oeizea the paper and puts it in her mouth. Bui. almost at the same moment two brutal bands are at her throat. Her father interfering in forced into a chair, while three other luffiana deal with the ycung girl. One holds open her mouth, a second chokes her, while a third thrusting hia dirty finger into her mouth, finally takes tho paper, torn and bloody, and she falls fainting to the floor. The rest of the night is spent in further -»,:.rch— cushions, chain, e\en the floor" fire lipped ay, arid if the poliae choose to help theaiddvs to any of the money, silver or jewelry, tbevo is no redress. The business is now over. Tha young woman is sternly bidden to Roy farewoll to her kindred, and with a desperate effort to conceal their anguish from their enemy, the police, they let her go, unknowning what will become of her, or whether they viill ever see her alive again. She is only 18 years old, and has lived aC St. Petereburg— where she osme to pursue her studies — but a few months, long enough to have committed several high crimt.3 and mitd^meanors. X, once a student, now an ardent and succsssful revolutionary propagandist among the peasantry, was tho companion of her childhood. In the country he sometimes wrote to Ler, and it was ono of hia letters which ahe had tried to destroy. At St. Petersburg through bi3 introduction she had made several new acquaintances of like viewa with himself. Oao was Miss Z . Once, when the former anticipated a visitation from the police, sho took into Ucr charge & packet of forbidden books. Another time she took a pamphlet to a fellow student, and Ift&t of all, fhe had allowed Miss Z to vee her address for tho f Miner's correspondence. Serious onVices all of them, and if the police knew cvwything she would be utterly lost I But they could not know everything. Impoasiblo I Yet something they must know — or suspect. How much, and what ? That wis the question. Hero our oaptive's reverie is interiuptcd by the sudden stoppage of the carriage, and looking through the window she ecus a fine four-storied building in a stylo of architecture at once elegant and severe. It is the palace of the new icquisnion— the liouto of Preventive Detention. A wicket in the masBive brown door silently opena. Then there is a ratilo of bolts behind her; the wicket closes. V/ao can tell when it will open again for her ? They take her to the office ; tWy put down her name, ago and description. Then a voice from below : " Receive number thi/ty-nine I " "lliadyl" answers a voice from above. Number Thirty-nine, escorted by a worder, rnounta tha staircase.* On one of the landings she ia dolivordd-to another wardei, who conducts hex to cell thirty-nino. Thid cell is henceforth the oaplivc's world. A little box, but new, clean, and neatly arranged, four paces wide and five long. A trucklebed, a little table fastened to the wall, a littlo Btool,- a gas-pipe and a water-pipe. She examines all these objects with curiosity and a sense of pleasant surprise. Af -*er all, the devil ia not so black as he is painted. Trie very day of her arrest Thiity nine was taken before tho procurator, from whom she learnt that ihe visits Bhe had occasionally made to X were known to the police ; and his letters showed that their relations were of a somewhat friendly oharaoter. The puapioion3 weic confirmed by tho attempt of Thirty-nino to destroy ber friend's letter. Than this nothing more waa known. Shs wasaocuaed of belonging to the ac-ciet joc'.vty directed by X, having for its o^jact •' the OTeithrow of the c xibting order, subversion of property, religion and the family,' and so forth. These" charges she naturally denied. " Very well," said tha procurator at length, "you will bave to refteot. Taka number Thirty-nine back to har cell, warder." Thirty-nine went buck to her cell, rej jibing that she had come so well out of the ordeal, and that the police had so little againet her. Her opirits rose and she was full of hopo as to the future. She was allowed to reflect at hrr qw ; aha could not complatn that the even t< mr of her thoughts was disturbed by bo many di.-i factions. A whole week paseed, a second, ft thud. An entire month elapsed, and p til 1 nothing was said about another examination. If ilf a year went by without any break in tho nio'jot9ny of her life, a life p« j -od within the four trails of her littlo box, from whioh she emerged but once a day for a few minutes' lonely v?ak. But towards the end of tho seventh moot!), yhen she had almost abandoned hope, ehe is jailed beforo the •procurator to untie igo ptill mother questioning. Surely they will lot her 50 now 1 At any rate, they did not kcrp Her long in

'Russia Undbb thk Tzvns. By Stopni ik. Kuw York : Chas. ScribnerM Soua, and Harper and Bros. (Franklin Square Library.)

suspense. The examination was brief and sharp : " Have you reflected ?" " Yes, I have reflected." " Have you anything to add to your previous depositions ?" " Nothing." " Indeed ! Go back toyouvcell, then. I will make you rot there." " I will make you rot theic." Tbia ii the stereotyped expression ; an expression which fow political prisoners have not repeatedly heard. Thirty-nire doae not this time return to her Cfil with a light her.it and a beaming counleaance, as she had dove after her first interrogatory. The months go find come, as if time and memory were not , tho se^on* follow in their unvarying round. It was autumn when f-lia lost her liberty, thci another autumn earne and went, and now a third is passing away— yet freedom returns not ; it seems bh far off as over. Poor Thirtynine still languishes in her cell, bo wofully changed by confinement .and solitude that even her own mother would hardly know her. She bombarded the procurator with letter*, entreating him to order her into exi'e, to send her to {Siberian mine"', to sentence her to penal servitude. Sho would go anywhere or do anything to escape from her living tomb. The procurator camo several times to her cell. " Have you anything to add to your dcpo?itions?"was his invariable question on this occasion. "No." " Very well, I inuat still leave you to year reflection." She begged her mother to try to get her enlarged on bail, pending her trial. But her parents could in no way help her. All their applications received the eamo response : "Your daughter is obstinately impenitent. Advise her to think better of it. We can do nothing for you." She f<iU into utter de3pair. Dark ideas of suioide began to haunt her brain. More than once she thought she was going rand. From these calamities her physical weakness, by leaaenicg the intercity of her life nnd numbing her susceptibility to Buffering alone saved her. Tnis is why in Eusaian prisons the young aii'l vigorous succumb the soonest. The feeble and delicate have a better chance. Want of air and exereisp, and insufilciont and unsuitable food, have produced thoir natural effect on that young and undeveloped organism. The bloom of health has long cinco vai uhed from those cheeks, once so fresh and ie.it. Her complexion has assumed that jellosr green tint peculiar to sickly plants and to the young who linger long in captivity. But she is not thin ; on the contrary, her face is swollen and puffy, the result of softening of the tissues, produced by seclusion ar,d inaction. All her movemants are alow, indolent, and automatic. Sho looks six years older. She can remain half au hour in the same position, with her eyes fixed on the sains objsct, as if she werp buried in deep thought. But she u not, Tor her brain has become rs flabby as her mu 3 c!e^ At first she read greedily all the bocks which the prison authorities allowed her mother to bring her. Now, however, she finds concentration of thought bo difficult that she cannot rend two consecutive pages without extreme fatigue. She passes the greater part of her timo in a state of torpor, in heavy drowsiness, moral andphjsioal. She ha 3 no desire to talk or lay plans. What ecu it profit to talk to the ait* to speak of the future when you are without hope? The doctor comes, accompanied by a policeman. Thirty-nine is examined. It is quite an ordinary case— prison anemia. The lung 1 ! are severely effected 1 tho nervous system i* thoroughly deranged. In a word, she is, suffering from prison sickness. This physician was young at his business as a gaol doctor. Ho had some humanitarian id^a?, and hi 3 heart was o^ien to pity. But he v, as so accustomed to the sight of suffering that he could contemplate it unmoved. To show over-much compassion for a political prisoner, moreover, might oxpcEe him to the suspicion of being a seoret sympathiser with tho disaffected. 11 Tbcre in nothing serious the matter," said tho man of physic. Yes, what will become of poor Thirty-nine f Oh, there arc many alternatives for her, all eqaally possible. If by some shock her vital energy should be awakoned and the acute cri«i3 return, she may strangle herself with a pocket handkerchief or a piece of linen, or poi°on herself, cut her throat with a pair of scneors, or with a broken glass. Sho may go mad ; if she continues to fade she will die of consumption. Relenting too late, her custodians may refuse her provisionally, but only to let her die outside. If, however, by reason of unusual vigor of constitution, she should eurvivo until the day of trial, her judges, out of consideration for her tender yeira and long imprisonment, may let her end her days in Siberia. The central prison of Novo Belgorode is for malefactors as well as political prisoners. The common pri3oneis live and work together ; minds and hands are alike occupied. The political convicts aro isolated and forbidden to speak to one another, and attempts to do so are se\ertly punished. Professional brigands, murdeier3 of families, are treated better than the political prisoners. In July, 1878, the political prisoners demanded that they might be treated the same as the murdeieifl, the incendiaries, and highwaymen — to work in the prison workshop, to be allowed food from the outsido, and Ruch books as they wanted. The demand was, of course, refused. They thereupon began a "famino strike." For eight days they refused all food. It was only when they were so weak they could not rise from their beds and every hour threatened a scandal which would have horrified all li!A=sia that tho director yialded. But the promise was a deliberate lie. After they had caton and tho danger past, the privileges granted to robbers and murderers were still withhold. Thcio wore not Torioriats. Their only offence wait punting and distributing socialistic and revolutionary documents, or talking them up among their fellow?. Some of these victims of Budsian despotism aro of noble blood, persona of wealth, who havo laid asida their rank and luxury, and for the pake of the cause gone to work in tbe fields nr in the factories in order that they might gain the ear and confidence of tho , common people in b&half of their doctrines. The potty tyrannies of the prnon oftioials are goading. For reciting Eomo verse 3 in a low tone in his cell, a prisoner, though ill, was manacled and dragged about the prison. Another, hearing sorno peasants ting outside, in a moment of forgotfulness sang in hia c"ll. The warden Borue time after tbe offence and when all bad long been piUnf, went to the cell and struck him a violent blow in the ni'vith. Another, for saying to his gaoler, ' li ing ma some water 1" iuhtcad of "will yoa have the goodness to biing mo come watT? " was threatened with skinning from head to foot. lie was also told that if he was bidden to bow down to a stick he must do so without a word. Another was reproved for even replying, "Good-day, eir," when hid superior bade him good day, without adding, " I hope yoa ore well," as holdicrs are obliged to do to the salutations of their olliccrs. Opposite the imperial palaco of the Czar in S\ Petersburg is the Fortress of Prtrr and Paul. Political prisoners are incarcerated hfre, whose names and offences the director of the priion are not allowed to know. The wmlerß vill not even speak to the prisoners whon they carrj food to them, leHt they be compromised. They are not allowod to answer even tho uioit trivial questions put by a prisoner. Everything is done in silence. Aiid there naunt always bo two warders. No warder is allowed to approach n prisoner r.lnne. These prinouera am put in altornato cells, an empty cell between, so as to render communication an absolute impossibility. One prisoner was immured and guarded there so strictly that for tcven years his friends did not know what had become of him." In 1833 there waa a woman prisoner djing of consumption, of whom neither gaolers or prisoners knew the crime or even tbe name, In tbe lowest depth of tbe prison,

lower than the waters of tho Neva, the Terrorists are imprisoned, Only three communications have ever come from prisoners there. One prisoner contrived to gat a pen and piece of paper, but for ink he was forced to u°e his own blood, which ho obtained by biting his nrm. From those lotters Borne idea if pained of the horrora of this inner priflon. Voq are led through a maza of passages until ft door which seems to open into the wall, H reached and yoa are told to enter. For a minatc or two you can eeo nothing, so deep 'm tbe gloom. The coldness of the place ohilh you to the bone, and there is a darop, mouldy smell like that of a charnel hou^o or an ill-vetitilatod cellar. Tho only light come? from a little dormer window looking towarh tho counterscarp of the bastion. The p<iniH are dark grej, being overlaid with a thiok covering of dust, which seems to have lain there for ages. When your eyes have become accustomed to tho obscurity you perceive that you are tenant of a cell a fo-v paces wide and long. In one norner ia a bed of straw with a woollen counterpane as thin aa papsr — nothing else. At the foot of the bed stands a high wooden pail with a cover. This is tho pp.iaahka, which later on will poison you with foul stcrche3. Tor the prisoners rx» not allowed to leave their cells for any purpose whatever, cither nijzht or day, and the pirashka ia oitcn left uncraptied for days together. You are thus obliged to live, sleep, oat and drink in an atmosphere reeking with oorruption and fatal to health. Tbe administration give 3 neither tea nor sugar, neither brush nor comb nor soap To the doomed captnB are interdicted books ot every sort. They may not read even the Bible. No occupation, cither mental or manual, beguiles the wretched monotony of their hvea. A prisoner having made some cubes of bread crumbs, they were taken from him on tho ground that a prison was not a place of amusement. Prisoners are taken out ouly every forty-eight hours, to breathe the fresh air for ten minutes — never longer — and it sometimes happans to them to be left three or four consecutive day* in tbe feti'l atmosphere without break. The ilour ia alalwfty3 bad, tho meat seldom fresh. Thi bread is po inauiliciently baked that even the orust in hardly eatable, and when the inside of a Ioi( is thrown against tho wall it sticks there like mortar. Tne prison ia no better warmed than tho prisoners are fed. At sixty degrees of north latitude in the winter time the cells are always oold, the walls alwflj3 damp. When the inspeotor makes kia round ha ne\er takes off his fur pelisse. The prisoners, who havo no furs, shiver sren in tl.eir beds, and all through the long winter their hands aud feet feel lika lamps of ice. Evon in summer the pri3oneiB are not in much better plight, for during tho warmer months til. Petersburg built on a march, is more unhealthy than at any other time. The most robmfc are unablo to resist tbe unwholesome influence ; they wither like flowers deprived of water and air. Their bodies lose flesh, their faces become swollen and blotched, and the hands are in a continuous nervous tremble. Their eyes beinflamod, the lids swell and are opened with great difficulty. But tho maladies most fatal and frequent are dysentery and scurvy. Yet the sick are treated inexactly the same way as the whole ; get the same food. They lose tbe use of their legs, they cannot reach the parashka,tha warders refnse to change the otr&vr of their wretched beds, and they are left to perish and rot in their own corruption. But there are horrors that defy description — that only tbe pen of a Dante could adequately portray. •' Oh, if you could see our sick I" exclaims the writer of the blood-wiitten letter. " A year ago they wero young, healthy and robust. Now they are bowld and decrepit old men, htrdly able to walk. Sovoral of them cannot rise from their beds. Covered with vermin, 'ir.d eaten up with scurvy, they emit an odor like that of a corpse. " But is there no doctor ? " it mey be asked. " What is ho doing all this time ? " " Ics, there is a doctor; thero are even two doctors One, however, is past fonrncoro and pus-t work. Ho comes to tho forirefi onlj occisionally. Tho other is young and probably kind en.iugh in intention, but; not very rr-,0-luto in character, and standing m gnv.t awe of (he ofliacrs of the gaol. After a c kmg a few questions he delivers hia verdict, whiih is always couched in the same word*: Tor your illness there is no cure.' Nj morcy n shown even to tho niad. Th r y &td shut up in their c«lla and kept in order with whip and scourge. Often you hear down below you, or at some little d;-t inco, the Bound of heart-rending shrieks, criL«, and grcsni. It is some wrotched lnnitio, who is bein^llnggr-tl into obedience. What ij r/>ort frightful," continues the writer, "is tbe petition of tho women, coiidemrod like oursdvej. L'Lc us, they aic at tbe mercy of thou- t«ao'oi'«» caprices. No consideration iii s'kxwi tbeir fox. Their beda, like our?, arc ; earche.l c»cry day by men. Tho liron which they hfne ju^t taken oil is examined, at alHincj, by gendarmes. Nor id this all. Gendarme:) may eater their ccli day or ni,?,ht. Case? of rflpy nre therefore very possible. At any ratn attemptß of this sort arc common enough. Under the Giat ll.^or arc otler cells t.\x worre — leal underground vault 0 , da;k at noonday and infe^tod with loathaune vermin. The small windows arc on a level with the rhcr, which eoTaelimcs overflows. Scarcely a ray of light enters. The walls arc raoulderinp. Dirty water drips irom the en. In the brick | walla large holes are purpof'lcsly left open for rats to paws through. They enter by soorcs, tiy to climb upon the beds and bile the prisoners. Night and <!ay a woman prisoner with a child at her breast watche3 o\ev her bibe last she be dovouied by ratt?. 1 ' Tbe fortress of Schlus cnburg is another Russian Bastile no worse than thi?. What could the government do worcc un!c33 it was to roRSt it* prisoners alive, like tho It iman emperors, or throw them into holes swarming with vipers ? — Ficc Press.