Louisiana Capitolian

The Horrors of Siberian Exile Contemporary Review.

Of the treatment of political exiles in Siberia I have before me a thrilling description from the pen of Mr. Robert Lemke, a German writer, who has visited the various penal establishments of Russia with 'an official legitimation. He had been to Tobolsk: after which he had to make a long. dreary journey in a wretched car, until a high mountain rose before him. In its torn and cragged flank the mountain showed a colossal opening similar to the mouth of a burnt-out crater. Fetid vapors, which almost take away the breath, ascend from it. Pressing his handkerchief upon his lips. Mr. Lemke entered the opening of the rock, where he found a large watch house, with a picket of Cossacks. Having shown his papers, he was conducted by a guide through a long, very dark and narrow corridor, which, judging from its sloping descent, led down into some unknown depth. In spite of his good fur, the visitor felt extremely cold. After a walk of some ten minutes through the dense obscurity, the ground becoming more and more soft, a vague shimmer of light became observable. "We are in the mine!" said the guide, pointing with a significant gesture to the high iron cross bars which closed the cavern before them.

The massive bars were covered with thick rust. A watchman appeared who unlocked the heavy iron gate Entering a room of considerable size, but which was scarcely a man's height; and which was dimly lit by an oil lamp. the visitor asked : "Where are we?" "In the sleeping room of the condemned! Formerly it was a productive gallery of the mine; now it serves as a shelter."

The visitor shuddered. This subterranean sepulchre, lit by neither sun nor moon, was called a sleeping room. Alcove-like cells were hewn into the rock ; here, on a couch of damp, half- rotten straw, covered with a sackcloth the unfortunate sufferers were to repose after the day's work, Over each cell a clamp iron was fixed. wherewith to lock up the prisoners like ferocious dogs. No door, no window anywhere.

Conducted through another passage where a few lanterns were placed, and whose end was also barred by an iron gate, Mr. Lemke came to a large vault, partly lit. This was the mine. A deafening noise of pickaxes and hammers. There he saw some hundreds of wretched figures, whose shaggy beards, sickly faces, reddened eyelids; clad in tatters, some of them barefoot, others in sandals, fettered with heavy foot chains. There were no songs, no whistling. Now and then they shyly looked at the visitor and his companion. The water dripped from the stones; the tatters of the convicts were thoroughly wet. One of them, a tall man of suffering mien labored hard with gasping breath, but the strokes of his pickaxe were not heavy and firm enough to loosen the rock.

"Why are you here?" Mr. Lemke asked.

The convict looked confused, with an air almost of consternation, and silently continued his work.

"It is forbidden to the prisoners," said the inspector, "to speak of their banishment."

Entombed alive : forbidden to say why!

"But who is the convict" Mr Lemke asked the guide, with low voice.

"It is Number 114!" the guide replied laconically.

"This I see," answered the visitor, "but what are the man's antecedents To what family does he belong ?"

"He is a Count," replied the guide "a well known conspirator. More, I can not tell you about 114."

The visitor felt as if he were stifled in the grave-like atmosphere—as if his chest were pressed in by a demoniacal night-mare. He hastily asked his guide to return with him to the upper world. Meeting there the commander of military establishment, he was obligingly asked by that officer: "Well. what impression did our penal establishment make upon you?"

Mr. Lemke stiffly bowing in silence the officer seemed to take this as a kind of satisfied assent and went on: "Very industrious people, the men below—are they not ?"

"But with what feelings," Mr. Lemke answered, "must these unfortunates look forward to a day of rest after the week's toil !"

"Rest!" said the officer, "convicts must always labor. There is no rest for them. They are condemned to perpetual forced labor, and he who once enters this mine never leaves it."

"But this is barbarous!"

The officer shrugged his shoulders and said, "The exiled work daily for twelve hours; on Sundays too. They must never pause. But, no; I am mistaken, Twice a year, though, rest is permitted to them: at Easter time. and on the birthday of his Majesty. the Emperor."