Page:Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin - The Terror in Russia (1909).djvu/34

 Rh of the governor. When the assistant arrived, he began to swear at the warders that they had "killed a prisoner without permission." Then they saw that the prisoner still breathed. He was taken to the hospital; when he had revived he was taken back to solitary confinement, where he is now and where he is being beaten every few days. The warders say openly, "You won't live long."

Prisoners are brought to this prison from other prisons for "correction "—rather for murder. Even the soldier-guards speak with horror and terror of what happens within these walls.

The procureur never visits the prison, and though the treatment of prisoners was brought to his knowledge through his Deputy, and the latter promised that a legal inquiry should be made, of course nothing has been done.

Evidence was then read to the Duma concerning the Tobolsk hard-labour prison. It is similar to the above.

In the Boutyrki prison in Moscow the prisoners are continually stripped and searched, the warders pushing their filthy hands into the prisoners' mouths. The cases of beating and the Black Hole punishment are endless. Here are a few cases:—

A prisoner was slow in taking off his cap to the governor's assistant. The assistant snatched off the cap and gave the prisoner a furious blow in the ribs. The warders constantly beat the prisoners.

One prisoner had his temple smashed by a blow given with a pair of handcuffs.

A sailor was so beaten in July, 1908, that he committed suicide.

Real tortures take place in the Black Hole and in the "secret" cells.

"Enter with a lamp into this cell," writes a prisoner, "and the black patches of coagulated blood will tell you what happens in the Black Hole."

Recently a prisoner, officially reported perfectly healthy previous to this, died three days after illtreatment in the Black Hole.

A prisoner, acknowledged insane, was terribly beaten and flogged.

One prisoner in the hospital struck a warder during a fit. He was strapped with leather thongs to his cot for seven days. These straps were neither removed nor loosened for one single moment for any need during seven days and seven nights. His right arm has now become paralysed.