Page:Chertkov - Christian Martyrdom.djvu/90

Rh much for the history of some of the prisoners. Those who were banished have not fared much better. Out of sixteen villages (containing in all about 1886 men), 287 adults and 112 children, visited this year, were found to be suffering from hemeralopia, or hen-blindness ; 113 adults and 40 children were suffering from other eye diseases, and a few were quite blind; 57 adults and 31 children suffered from dysentery; 86 adults and 22 children were seriously ill. Almost the whole population suffered more or less from fever. Their earnings are very small, in some villages nothing at all, and yet in most places they have rents to pay. But the picture is by no means entirely a dark one. Notwithstanding the fact that such an increase of population must be a considerable burden upon an already poverty-stricken district, there are many