AN ISLAND OF TRAGEDY

Evening Star, Issue 12625, 3 October 1905, Page 3

AN ISLAND OF TRAGEDY

Jsaghalien is the place to which Russia sends her violent convicts. Tbe convict in Siberia has some liberty to console hiin for his detention, but the convict in Saghalien none. Vvnen a party of convicts (having been pronounced "violent" by the Governor of the Siberian station) are landed in_Saghalien, the procession to the gaol i 3 as follows :—First amon" the prisoners come men with fetters on their legs, and linKed together in pairs, tho clanking of their chains making a lugubrious noise. Next come half a dozen men, each without fetters, but secured by the hands to a long iron rod. Then follow female prisoners, and after them—the most affecting nart of the whole^—the wives and children who have elected to accompany into exile their husbands and fathers. Behind them rumble " telegas," or rough waggons, wherein are transported baggage, and those children who are too young- or infirm to walk. When on the march the prisoners are allowed 31b of bread and Alb of meat each per diem, and they are not forbidden to receive alms. But wben they arrive at their destination their lot is a pitiful one. Their cells are damp and funguscovered, their food is less than the allowance durir.g the joumoy. and their work in the salt mines is most exhausting. Most of the prisoners are very ignorant. Few of them can read, except the Caucasians, but they are atl put to the same laborious work, and in tho event of their being physically unable to perform their allotted tasks their punishments are very cruel. The English " cat-o'-nine-tails "is nothing to the terrors of the " bodiga." 11l this instrument of torture the prisoner is so fixed that he can neither move nor cry ont, and wire thongs, bound at the end with pointed tin, strike his back at frequent intervals. Other tortures to which prisoners are subjected are too dreadful to write about; and during all these tortures the prisoner is presented by gags from obtaining even the poor relief of a scream. Surely the horrors of the salt mines of Hetskaya are nothing compared with the abominations of Saghalien.