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CONDITION OF PRISONS

this appendix will be found a few facts and statements concerning Siberian prisons, derived partly from Siberian newspapers and partly from official reports. It will be seen that they cover a series of years, both before and after my journey to Siberia, and that they relate to prisons in all parts of northern Asia from the mountains of the Urál to the mines of Kará. Most of the articles quoted from Siberian periodicals were read and approved by the local press censors before they were published, many of them had express official sanction, and none of them, so far as I know, has ever been disputed or questioned in the newspaper where it originated. For greater convenience of reference I have arranged the statements and descriptions, so far as possible, in alphabetical order under the names of the prisons to which they relate.

The Achinsk prison is a cloaca, where human beings perish like flies. Typhus fever, diphtheria, and other epidemic diseases prevail there constantly, and infect all who have the misfortune to get into that awful place. Not long ago a young girl—Miss Nikitína— died there of typhus fever, and in that prison Mr. Lko contracted the typhus from which he died in Krasnoyársk.—Newspaper Sibir, No. 1. Irkútsk, Jan. 1, 1885.

In the Áchinsk prison matters are still worse. There one doctor has on his hands more than 300 sick, in a small cramped hospital, and with a very limited number of attendants. What can one unfortunate doctor do in such circumstances?

—Newspaper Vostúchnoe Obozrénie, No. 3. St. Petersburg, Jan. 22, 1887.