RUSSIAN CRUELTY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1174, 8 July 1911, Page 5

RUSSIAN CRUELTY.

MORE PRISON SCANDALS. By Telegraph-Press Association-OopyriEit St. Petersburg, July 6. Inquiries into the treatment of the convicts employed on the Amur Railway construction in Siberia reveal the existence of wretched conditions. In the Hasdolny district the prisoners are subjected to senseless cruelty. Many are suffering from scurvy of the worst type, and their food is indescribably bad. One man was shot dead for impertinence. A number of sick convicts were ,eight days without warm food. ARE RUSSIAN PRISONS TOO COMFORTABLE? AN AMAZING REPORT. In the Russian Council of the Empire on May 11 a report was presented in favour of the introduction of a disciplinary and dietary system in tho prisons such as would make imprisonment "really a punishment." The Director of the Prisons Administration, in reply, said that the cost of feeding prisoners was from ono penny to three-halfpence a day, and in the great majority of cases no meat was provided except on holidays. As a commentary upon the proceedings in tho Council, the "R«tch" described how ten inmates of the Deryabin Prison in St. Petersburg recently inflicted- terrible wounds upon themselves as a protest against the rigorous treatment to which they were subjected. They cut open their stomachs, and when taken to the infirmary they resisted treatment. Several charges of gross brutality in Russian prisons have been reported in the press lately. One case is that of tho Kikolaieff prison, where, according to the indictment, special nagaikas were ordered from tho prison workshops, consisting of ox tendons wrapped round with strips of raw hide, for the purpose of flogging the prisoners. When tho ends frayed owing to frequent use they were tied up with iron wire. Among those flogged were political prisoners confined in solitary cells.