Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/243

Rh by them or sent to them from European Russia, and they could amuse themselves occasionally by working with carpenter's or blacksmith's tools in a small shop situated in one corner of the courtyard. On the other hand, they were living under very bad sanitary conditions; some of them were kept night and day in handcuffs and leg-fetters; two or three of them were chained to wheelbarrows; those who still had possession of their mental faculties were forced to listen constantly to the babbling or the raving of their insane comrades; they were no longer allowed to diversify their monotonous existence by work in the gold placers; they were deprived of the privilege of enrolment in the free command at the expiration of their terms of probation; they were forbidden to communicate with their relatives; and their whole world was bounded by the high serrated wall of the prison stockade. That their life was a terribly hard one seems to have been admitted, even by the most indifferent of Siberian officials. In March, 1882, Governor-general Anúchin made a report to the Tsar with regard to the state of affairs in Eastern Siberia, in the course of which he referred to the political convicts at Kará as follows: