Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/175

Rh with regard to East-Siberian prisons and prison management generally in the second part of his book. I am not saying these things for the first time; they have been said before, in Russia and by Russians. I do not repeat them because I like to do it; but because they ought to be repeated until the Russian Government shows some disposition to abate such evils.

After we had finished our inspection of the cells in the Middle Kará prison, we made an examination of the kitchen. Hard-labor convicts at Kará receive a daily ration consisting of three pounds of black rye-bread; about four ounces of meat, including the bone; a small quantity of barley, which is generally put into the water in which the meat is boiled for the purpose of making soup, and a little brick tea. Occasionally they have potatoes or a few leaves of cabbage; but such luxuries are bought with money made by extra work, or saved by petty "economies" in other ways. This ration seemed to me ample in quantity, but lacking in variety and very deficient in vegetables. The bread, which I tasted, was perhaps as good as that eaten by Russian peasants generally; but it was very moist and sticky, and pieces taken from the center of the loaf could be rolled back into dough in one's hands. The meat, which I saw weighed out to the convicts after it had been boiled and cut up into pieces about as large as dice, did not have an inviting appearance, and suggested to my mind small refuse scraps intended for use as soap-grease. The daily meals of the convicts were arranged as follows: in the morning, after the roll-call or "verification," breakfast, consisting of brick tea and black rye-bread, was served to the prisoners in their cells. The working parties then set