Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/526



THE TOMSK FORWARDING PRISON

Some time after the publication in The Century Magazine of the article bearing the above title, an English traveler—Mr. H. de Windt—visited one or more of the Tomsk prisons, and wrote to the London Pall Mall Gazette a letter in which he said, among other things, that "the Tomsk prison, as graphically described in the pages of The Century Magazine, does not exist." His first letter, and the correspondence to which it gave rise, will be found below.

September.

I should first mention that permission to visit Tomsk, or any other Siberian prison [criminal or political], was at once granted to me on application to the Russian prison authorities, and without conditions as to time or place. Having at St. Petersburg signified my intention of not arriving at Tomsk until the 3d of October, I this morning presented myself at the prison gates of that city. This being the height of the transportation season, no time was lost on the way. Tomsk is the depot for Eastern Siberia and its prison, consequently, more likely at the present time to be overcrowded and "teeming with horrors" than at any other. I need hardly add that this was not my only reason for arriving unexpectedly.

The city of Tomsk is situated almost in the heart of Siberia, and lies rather more than half-way from St. Petersburg to the gold mines of Nertchinsk—the dreaded mines of which so much has been written of late. As far as Tomsk the journey is made entirely by steam, by way of the Volga and Obi rivers and Ural railway. At Tomsk the march commences, and if [physically] fit, a prisoner proceeds on foot to the prison or penal settlement to which he is sentenced. In case of sickness a score or so of telegas, or wooden carts, accompany each gang. Convicts for the island of Sakhalin are now sent by sea, in the cool season, from Odessa.

On producing the necessary document, signed by the Minister of the Interior at St. Petersburg, I was at once admitted to the Goubernski