Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/312

296 "But," I said, "such a system is all wrong; there's no sense in such management. What is the use of corresponding for years with indifferent officials in St. Petersburg about a matter that might be settled in twenty-four hours by the governor of the province, or even by a petty isprávnik? All over Eastern Siberia I have found miserable, decaying, tumble-down log prisons, and everywhere in such prisons I have seen able-bodied convicts living month after month in absolute idleness. The country is full of trees suitable for timber, you have plenty of labor that costs you nothing, every Russian peasant knows how to put up a log building—why don't you let your idle convicts build prisons for themselves?"

"We have n't a strong enough convoy here to guard convicts in the woods," said the warden; "they would escape."

"That is no reason," I replied. "It is easy enough for a Government like yours to strengthen the convoy during the time that the timber is being cut; and suppose that a few of the prisoners do escape! From my point of view it would be better to let half of them escape than to keep them shut up in idleness in such a prison as this. Nobody yet has given me a satisfactory explanation of the fact that, although hundreds, if not thousands, of convicts lie idle for months or years in overcrowded and decaying log prisons, no attempt is made to utilize their labor in the erection of larger and better buildings."

The warden shrugged his shoulders in the significant Russian way, but did not pursue the subject. I have never seen any reason to change the opinion that I formed at Algachí with regard to this prison. As a place of confinement, even for the worst class of offenders, it was a disgrace