Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/114

92 dilute carbolic acid, which, after the foulness of the prison atmosphere, seemed to us almost as refreshing as spirits of cologne.

At last, having finished our inspection of the main building, we came out into the prison yard, where I drew a long, deep breath of pure air with the delicious sense of relief that a half-drowned man must feel when he comes to the surface of the water.

"How many prisoners," I asked the warden, "usually die in that hospital in the course of the year?"

"About 300," he replied. "We have an epidemic of typhus almost every fall. What else could you expect when buildings that are barely adequate for the accommodation of 800 persons are made to hold 1800? A prison so overcrowded cannot be kept clean, and as for the air in the cells, you know now what it is like. In the fall it is sometimes much worse. During the summer the windows can be left open, and some ventilation can be secured in that way; but when the weather becomes cold and stormy the windows must be closed, and then there is no ventilation at all. We suffer from it as well as the prisoners. My assistant has only recently recovered from an attack of typhus fever which kept him in bed for six weeks, and he caught the disease in the prison. The local authorities here have again and again urged the Government to make adequate provision for the large number of exiles crowded into this prison during the season of navigation, but thus far nothing has been done beyond the building of two log barracks."

The warden spoke naturally and frankly, as if the facts that he gave me were known to everybody in Tiumén, and as if there was no use in trying to conceal them even from a foreign traveler when the latter had been through the prison and the prison hospital.

From the main prison building we went to the women's prison, which was situated on the other side of the road in