Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/549

Rh Mr. Gálkine Wrásskoy, chief of the Russian prison administration, finds the prisons at the Nérchinsk mines to be in bad condition, and the medical attendance deficient.

—Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 26, p. 2. St. Petersburg, September 23, 1882.

THE PERM FORWARDING PRISON.

The following are the official statistics of sickness and mortality in the Perm forwarding prison for the years 1886, 1887, and 1888.

The sick-rate in Danish prisons ranges from 2.11 to 2.13 per cent., and the death-rate from 1.75 to 1.79 per cent.

—Rep. of Internatl. Pris. Cong., London meeting, p. 78.

THE SHERAGÚLSKI ÉTAPE.

Typhus fever constituted 35.7 per cent. of all the sickness in the Sheragúlski étape in 1886, 23.4 per cent. in 1887, and 39.1 per cent. in 1888.

—Rep. of Chf. Pris. Adm. for years indicated, pp. 222, 317, and 293.

The étapes, with a few exceptions, are in an unsatisfactory condition, and some of them are in ruins. In the Sheragúlski étape, which has only two kámeras with thirty-six cubic fathoms of air space, there are crowded as many as fifty sick prisoners, of all ages and both sexes. They lie on the sleeping-platforms or under them as it may happen, and the stench in the kámeras is such that it can be borne with difficulty, even for a few moments. The grievously sick, for want of attendance, wallow on the floor in the midst of filth and evacuations from the bowels, and their clothes rot on their bodies. Still worse, according to the reports of the physicians, is the condition of the women that are compelled to give birth to children under the eyes of the male prisoners. The situation of the children themselves is also terrible.

—Newspaper Vostóchnoe Obozrénie, No. 26, p. 1. St. Petersburg, September 23, 1882.