IN RUSSIA

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 3293, 16 July 1917, Page 4

IN RUSSIA

OUT OF A LIVING GRAVE

EXILES RELEASED FROM ' SIBERIA.

BACK TO NEW RUSSIA

New York

Fifty thousand sledges, "carrying | victims of tbe old regime back to freedom in the new ltussin from the mines and convict settlements of Siberia, are speeding in endless chain across the snows of Northern Asia towards the nearest points on the Trans-Siberian Railway, says a despatch from Tnymen, Siberia. Their passengers range from members of the old Terorrist societies to exiles who were banished by administrative decree without trial, or even known offence. A great crowd met and cheered the first large party which arrived at Ekaterinburg, in the Urals. Tbe exiles, who did their best to return the cheers, were in a deplorable physical condition. . Some wore new costumes which had been supplied by sympathisers arong their route, and some had handsome fur overcoats covering their hideous gaol uniforms. Among thoso who woro this latter costume was a oung millionaire aristocrat from Odessa, who had been sentenced for life ten years ago for fomenting a revolutionary mutiny in the Black Sea Fleet. The first to bo freed in the mining I district of Nertehinsk was the famous Marie Spiridonova, who killed a colonel of gendarmes for torturing prisoners. She was herself tortured and abused for seven days, and then sentenced to death by a field court-mar-tial. After her release Mine. Spiridonova fell ill, and is now m a bospita in Tchita. Alexander Popoff, who was sentenced to death for an alleged plot against tlie Emperor, telling of his release at Tobolsk, said: "A remarkable feature of amnesty-day in Tobolsk was the sudden demand for blacksmiths. The prison blacksmith, fearing the vengeance of the convicts, fled, and private blacksmiths, in the general orgy ot revolutionary triumph, could not be found. In the meantime 60 chained men were driven in our chains to the dismissed governor's palaco, where a banquet had been prepared, and wo bad our first free meal.. Above the din of BP»eches and cheers for tbe Russian Republic could lie heard tlie jangling of our shackles." A girl who had been exiled to a place near the shores of Lake Baikal said that when tbe* news of the revolution was given out by the villajre priest 50 exiles rushed out of the! chnrch. determined on vengeance on tbe local police captain, a tyrant. They were met by the policeman'p ten-year-old daughter, who stood before" her father and exclaimed : " Xil 1 me first !" The child's action saved the captain's life.