PRISONERS IN SIBERIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 379, 23 July 1880, Page 17

PRISONERS IN SIBERIA.

(Correspondence of the Times.') With regard to the occupation of the exiles, the most severe labour is that of the " mines," of which there are three sorts — gold, silver, and coal. The silver mines are in the mountains in the neighbourhood of a town called Nertchinsk, at which we stopped for a short time only. It has been sometimes said that Siberian exiles are sent down and kept down in quicksilver mines, amid unhealthy fumes till they die, not being allowed to come up to sleep, and I have been repeatedly asked since my return if this is not so. Having heard the statement before I went to Siberia, I put the question to several , persons, both in the neighbourhood and elsewhere, whether such was not the case, and common fairness compels me to say that everyone denied it. Even the few Poles who spoke so bitterly of the Government did not bring this to their charge ; nor did I meet any of the convicts who said as much. On the contrary, I know a man who worked in these mines years ago, and he distinctly denies it. A young officer who visited these silver mines some years since told me, among other things, that he believed they worked upon the " twelvehour system," whereas the director at Kara, who had charge of the gold mine?, said that he was not quite sure, but he was under the impression that they worked only eight hours. I heard it said that Government mines were not usually so well woiked as private mines, and also that the greater part, if not all the silver mines formerly belonging to the Government have passed into private hands. It may be that a certain number of convicts now work for these private companies, and in the silver mines of Siberia there must be unhealthy fumes as in similar mines anywhere else ; but I could not hear that those who worked them were submitted to any exceptional treatment, and every one to whom I spoke upon the subject denied that the men were kept there continually. The coal mine is at Dvi, in Baghalien. I heard more forbidding accounts of this place than of any other ; but it was not with regard to the work. They work 12 hours a day in getting the coal from the mine and shipping it. The mine is in the hands of a private company, who may use the labour of 400 convicts, for which they pay. One officer who had often been there went so far as to say to me that the amount of work allotted to each man per day ought to be got through by an energetic workman in a couple of hours. For the truth of this I cannot answer. I will only add that those who had most to say in disfavour of Dvi never complaicedfthat the prisoners were over-worked, and every one whose opinion I asked upon the subject gave a similar verdict. The gold mines I taw, and I went among the convicts at their work. Their labour consists of first removing the soil, stones, &c, which lie above the layers of sand containing goU, after which this sand has to be carried away by horses or men and emptied in a revolving cylinder pierced with boles. The sand and gold fall through the holes, while the stones are tumbled out at the end of the cylinder and have to be carted away. The number of men in the particular mine I visited was 120, together with 70 horses, and the quantity of earth they had washed during the day was 30 cubic sazhanes (the Bazhane being equal to seven English feet). They had to work from 6in the morning, in summer, till 7 at night, with respite for meals. Surrounding them was a cordon of military sentinels, and when the whistle sounded to cease work the numbers were called and the convicts marched off for the nighty looking sad enough, but certainly not working so hard as free labourers ; for when the convicts ceased work for the night the free labourers employed kept on, and in a private gold mine we visited near Krasnoiarsk the men worked from, I think, 4 in the morning to 8 at night, doing so seven days a week. The charge is sometimes made that the prisoners have no holidays, and have to work on Sundays. The former part is false ; the latter part of the charge, I am sorry to say, is true. Those who defend it in the gold mines might, perhaps, reply that the exiles have no work to do in the winter, the ground being frozen ; that the season for getting the gold is short ; that it is not the custom to rest on Sundays in private Siberian gold mines ; that the convicts work comparatively short hours ; that they rest two days a month when they go to the bath ; and observe as holidays certain church festivals and the birthdays of the royal family. All which may be true, but in this instance I confess I thought the convicts unjustly treated.