the convicts in the cell was a school-teacher named Shchedrín who, exasperated beyond endurance by the recital and the insulting taunt, sprung towards Solivióf, and, calling him a "despicable coward and liar," struck him in the face. For this insult to an officer, and for an attempt that he had made to escape, Shchedrín, upon his arrival at Kará, was chained to a wheelbarrow. In July, 1882, he, with the other "dangerous" political convicts named on page 237, was sent to St. Petersburg to be incarcerated in the castle of Schlusselburg. He was not released from the wheelbarrow, even when put into a vehicle; but as the roads were rough, and as he was constantly being bruised by the jolting of the barrow against him, it was finally found necessary to unchain him and lash the wheelbarrow on behind. Colonel Vinokúrof, inspector of exile transportation for Western Siberia, told me that he saw Shchedrín, with the wheelbarrow still lashed to his vehicle, passing through the province of Tobólsk.
After the hunger-strike in the Kará political prison in the summer of 1882 the life of the prisoners became a little more tolerable. They were again allowed to have books, money, and some warm clothing of their own, and they were permitted to walk two hours a day in the courtyard. The sanitary conditions of their life, however, continued to be very bad, little attention was paid to the sick, and the death-rate was abnormally high.[1]
Between the resignation of Colonel Kononóvich in 1881 and the appointment of Captain Nikólin in 1885 there were
- ↑ I have not been able to obtain a complete list of the prisoners who died, committed suicide, or went insane in the Kará political prison between 1879 and 1886, but I know of the following cases:
Deaths (all except one from prison consumption): Ishútinof, Krivoshéin, Zhúkof, Pópeko, Madam Lisófskaya, Tíkhonof, Rogatchóf, Dr. Véimar, Miss Armfeldt, and Madam Kutitónskaya. Suicides: Semyónofski (shot himself), Ródin (poisoned himself), Uspénski (hanged himself). Insane: Matvéivich, Zubkófski, Pózen, and Madam Kavaléfskaya (the last named recovered). At the time of our visit to the mines eight out of the eleven women in the women's political prison were sick.
