STRANGE PRISONS I HAVE VISITED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10306, 13 March 1895, Page 6

STRANGE PRISONS I HAVE VISITED.

The Living Death in Kemoter Lands. The prisons of Russia have stood long for condemnation—and justly; but others of the prisons in the Balkans are little known, to Western Europe. It hae been my goofl; or ill, fortune (writes a travelling representative of Cassell'a Saturday Journal) to visit within a few months both the horrible dungeons in Morocco and some ©f these Turkish dens of suffsring. ' ; . For sheer cruelty and absolute disregard for the commonest principles of humanity, the prisons of Morocco are easily ahead of any in tke world. There the rich Jew and the well-to-do merchant, obnoxious to some Jack-in-office with arbitrary power, are hurried, without show of form or trial, to the reeking courts wherein beggars, cut-throats, and scoundrels of the lowest type herd like animals. You will find there is no attempt to provide even a minimum of daily sustenance. Occasionally bread of the coarsest quality.is' passed through tha partition which cuts of£ the captives, from life; bnt this is all insufficient; and the daily scene is one of cruel hunger, of pitiable woe—even of fighting, and oftentimes of murder. In the gaols o£ provincial Morocco, and even at Tangier, the gaoler himself is alike a terror and a power. In the latter city I have looked through the spyhole which ia opened to the visitor, and have witnessed things which the pen could scarce describe. This prison consists of a great open court, with a kind of cloister ranging round it. There is in tha centre a well, from which the most awful odours arise. Bat more to be noticed than the Moorish arches, the court paved with pebbles, or the wide baneh upon which the prisoners squat, are the captives themselves —miserable, shackled wretches from whom all hope in life has gone. This city is too much in touch with civilisation to permit of many of those unspsakable tortures which the old—and the new—Sultan of Morocco permitted and permits to be inflicted upon his faithful and often innocent subjects. In the Balkan States tortures like those csad in Morocco aro rare. Sometimes the prisoners are flogged with a thick whip of hide; and I have witnessed one such flogging when each stroke, resounding against the prisoner's back like a whip npon a board, took a slice of flesh clean out. But as a rule, and especially nnder Austrian government, there is humanity practised, though accompanied with great severity. Not many weofes since I was in the prison at Sarajevo, in Bosnia. There, in a dark and shady court, a number of wretches were huddling from the sun. All of them had shackles of iron upon their ankles, and when they walked the irons clanged dismally. In one corner, in a cell with half a door, a veiled woman crouched upon the ground, neither moving nor speaking. She had been in the gaol for two days and had not touched the coarse Turkish bread at her side. She was charged with murdering her four children, bnt she seemed to suffier no scruples of conscience at all. Interested in this strange stoicism, I asked the gaoler to question her. " Why did you kill your children ?" he in-

quired. " That they might enjoy Paradise I" said she. " But you will die yourself." " I would not wish to live." " But you have eaten no food." " I thall never eat again." More we could not get from her, bat after we had passed round the place, and seen fonr hulking robbers sitting playing some game with pabbles, and all smoking long cheroots, I passed the den of this poor creature again. I had a cheroot in my mouth, for the atmosphere of the courtyard was intolerable. To my surprise, as we passed the murderess she raised a cry. It was to beg the cheroot I was smoking. Going from this gaol, upon which the terrible sun beat pitilessly, I entered Turkey, and in a prison near tha frontier I saw one of the strangest sights that thia curiosity of mina has vouchsafed to me. It was the spectacle of a refractory brigand, who bad been run literally to earth, but who was quite a brute in captivity. Unable to withstand the violent outbreaks of the man, the authorities had chained him flat upon his face to a great board. His hands were stretched out through two staples before him; there was a chain about the centre of his body; his feet were cocked up in the air and secured to a couple of short posts. The reason for the latter eccentricity was soon obvious. When the man saw us, he gnashed his teeth like a wild beast. Struggling and fighting in his chains, he made the blood spurt from cute in his wri3ts and from bis waist. His cries wero like the cries of a madman. No sooner, however, did be begin to rave than the gaoler took up ,a thick cane and laid on to the upturned feet with a fury which rivalled the fary of the bound man. And at this treatment the wretch, having spat and cursed and nearly pulled fcis arms from the sockets, began to blubber like a baby, and finally fell to subdued moaning.

I have often thonght that if some of tha prisoners, befch from the gaols of Turkey and

from, those of Morocco, could be brought to Knglund to write their reminiscences, a volume exceeding in interest anything of the kind extant raußt reEult.

I remember well the story of an old Jew, given to me in Tangier with tears and heartbreaking pathos—and yet his was a common experience. " Look," said he ; "I have worn tfaose iron rings about my ankles for 40 years. During 20 yearn I have nos seen the face of my children. Ido not know whether my wife is living or dead. The mouthful of bread which forms my daily food is brought to me by one who used to be my servant. He is now, as I am, an old man before whom there is but a hand's breadth of life. Yet he, of all who ones looked up to me, alone remembers the Jew who dwelt in precious stones, and whose wealth brought him to the lWitg death."

" You have really been here £0 years?" I asked.

"Bj ray belief in God I have," said he; "40 years—perhaps more. My mind has gone with my strength and my hope. Even the letters which once cut my flesh to the bone now tnrn about shrivelled skin. My sight has long troubled mo, so that now I can with difficulty find my way to the foul well there to drink. And through these long years 1 have scarce known summer from winter—day from night. Fresh faces have corns and gone; other men have Buffered and died hero; I have heard cries of agony through long hours; I have Been suffering which has made me cnrse the day which brought me into the world. And all because God gave me wealth—a curse upon it." He trembled as ho spoke, and I saw that he had not many years to live. But he was typical of maDy who have fallen under this appalling tyranny—this justice which is fed on the cries of the tortured, and holds the balance not between right and wrong, bub between outrage and infamy. "