THE RUSSIAN BASTILLE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXI, Issue LXI, 30 January 1911, Page 2

THE RUSSIAN BASTILLE

The escape .of a prisoner from the ' Schlusselburg fortress, the Bastille of modern Russia, created a sensat:..:. • St. Petersburg at the end of last .. ; ar. The great fortress was captured :<vi the Swedes by Peter the Great, <■■. ,\. had his only son, Alexis, tortured to ,!eath within its walls. Since that time •ouiitless opponents of the Russian auU,<.racv have entered its sinister portals, to die speedily or to lose their reason in some gloomy dungeon. In 1905, when the forces of revolution had momentarily been successful, the doors of the fortress were opened, and many inmates whose very names had been forgotten were released. Some of the men had been in confinement for more than 20 years. The Government promised that the buildings would not be used again as a political prison, but th-j pledge.seems to have been broken as soon as the reactionary party resumed its old ascendency. To-day th'o Schlus'selburg contains scores of ' men whose sole offence has been opposition to the cruel oppression of the Russian system of government. .They are confined in small cells> and each man is guarded closely and chained heavily. The prisoner who escaped had been taken into a yard to perform some work, and, while the attention of his gaolers were wandering, he managed to scale the wall with the aid of a rope. The fortress is situated on a small island in Ladoga Lake and the prisoner, wearing his chains' walked all night across the frozen surface of the lake towards St. Petersburg which lay about thirty miles away. In the morning he was discovered by some peasants, and was promptly seized and carried back to his prison, in or3er that a reward might be seared from the authorities. It is not likely that he will have another opportunity to brppfhp froo air outside the walls of the terrible fortress.