Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/551

Rh THE TOMSK FORWARDING PRISON.

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

The death-rate among leased convicts in the Mississippi convict camps, between 1881 and 1885, ranged from 8.48 to 15.61 per cent. This is hardly more than half the death-rate of the Tomsk forwarding prison, and yet the Memphis Commercial says even such figures "tell the story of ill-usage, inhumanity, and brutal treatment."

—Memphis Daily Commercial, p. 1. Memphis, Tenn., July 27, 1890.

Typhus fever constituted 56.4 per cent. of all the sickness in the Tomsk forwarding prison in 1886, 62.6 per cent. in 1887, and 23.8 per cent. in 1888.

—Reps. of Chf. Pris. Dept. for years indicated, pp. 222, 317, and 293.

THE VÉRKHNI ÚDINSK PRISON.

Mr. M. I. Orfánof, a well-known Russian officer, who inspected the Vérkhni Údinsk prison at intervals for a number of years previous to our visit, has described it as follows:

The first prison in the Trans-Baikál is that of Vérkhni Údinsk. It stands on the outskirts of the town, on the steep high bank of the Selengá River. Over the edge of this bank, distant only five or six fathoms from the prison, are thrown all the prison filth and refuse, so that the first thing that you notice as you approach it, at any time except in winter, is an intolerable stench. The prison itself is an extremely old two-story log building intended to accommodate 140 prisoners. During my stay in Siberia I had occasion to visit it frequently. I never saw it when it held less than 500, and at times there were packed into it more than 800. I remember very well a visit that I once made to it with the governor of the Trans-Baikál. He arrived in winter and went to the prison early in the morning so that the outer door of the corridor was opened [for the