SCENES IN A RUSSIAN PRISON.

Colonist, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11737, 20 September 1906, Page 4

SCENES IN A RUSSIAN PRISON.

The horrors of a Russian gaol have been vividly described by Mr Barnet Beck, a revolutionary who has been incarcerated in Odessa. The conditions, he says, are unendurable. The filthy cells are not fit for dogs, yet they are often crammed with prisoners of both sexes. His own cell iv Ud^ssa, he says, was about Bft by Bft, but it had to accommodate twen-ty-seven persons, including three young boys and several, women. The straw underfoot was iiot changed for many weeks, and, owing to the dampness of the stone floor and the lack of sanitary accommodation, .it soon became full of filth and vermin. The greatest sufferers, of course, were thp women. The food consisted main iy of rotten, cabbage and half baked biaclt bread. Complaints from prisQnera simply made the gaoler 9 harsher. "A few days «jgo, '' wrote Mr Beck, from the gaol, "the prisoners in a neighbouring cell complained to the Governor of the quality of the food. The chief warder immediately threatened to have ', them knouted if they did not withdraw, their complaint. The prisoners refused, whereupon the warder ordered the soldiers to drag out the leader, who was knouted on the spot, then thrown into a 'career,' that is, a small dark cell about 3ft by 3ft and sft high, where the prisoner was chained to the wall in such a manner that he could neither sit nor stand, but was practically hanging by the bands, into which the irons cut deeply. The others refused to withdraw tbo complaint, and the warder ordered twomor c prisoners to be knouted. The prisoneis refused to allow their comrades to leave tbe cell, whereupon tbe soldiers drove them all out by blows with the butt end of their rifles, nod made them run the gauntlel io the corridor. One man's eye was destroyed by a thrust from a bayonet, a woman's breast cut open, and several were stunned," Many of the Odessa prisoners had never been before the Courts, and as a protpst against their illegal punishment they resorted to the desperate expedient of a "hunger strike," abstaining from food for seven days. In that time young men and women grew old and grey. Several prisoners died, others .went mad, and all the prisoners were meditating an awful vengeance on "tbe murderers o Russia's youth."