forwarding prison in August, 1889, as shown by an article then just published in the Tomsk Siberian Messenger. At that time — not more than four weeks before Mr. dé Windt wrote his letter — the Tomsk forwarding prison was not only in existence, but was in even a worse condition than that described in my article in the Century. According to the Tomsk Siberian Messenger — a conservative paper favored by the Government, and edited, moreover, under the strictest local censorship — the number of exiles in the forwarding prison at that time was "more than 4000" with a "prospect of 7000 in the near future"; and this in buildings that, according to the admission of Mr. Petukhóf , the acting-governor of the province, were intended to hold only 1400. "It is evident," the Tomsk newspaper says, "that the prison is threatened with the outbreak of all sorts of diseases, which will spread to the city, and bring terrible suffering upon its inhabitants. What is going on, meanwhile, in this place of confinement can be imagined only by one who has witnessed personally the picture that it presents of overcrowding breathlessness and literal suffocation. [Russian Gazette, No. 231, Moscow, September 3, 1889.] This article from the Tomsk Siberian Messenger must have been in print, and known to every intelligent citizen of Tomsk, at the very time when Mr. de Windt was writing, in that city, a letter declaring positively that the prison described by me, and referred to by the Siberian Messenger, did not exist. Mr. de Windt closes his letter with the inquiry, " Is it fair to believe implicitly all that we hear of the diabolical cruelties to criminal prisoners at Tomsk . . . ?" I would respectfully inquire in turn, "Is it fair to deal with a great subject in this careless, superficial way, and then ask English readers to accept one's statements as based on real knowledge or thorough investigation?"
George Kennan.
Boston, Mass., U. S. A., October 18, 1890. —Pall Mall Gazette, November 4, 1890.
III
To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette.
Sir: In a letter from Mr. George Kennan, the Siberian traveler, to the Pall Mall Gazette of November 4th, he says: "Kindly grant me space to correct an error into which Mr. de Windt has inadvertently fallen. He will find that there are two prisons in the city of Tomsk — one called the 'gubernski,' or provincial prison, and the other the 'perisylni,' or exile-forwarding prison. The former is used exclusively for local offenders, while the latter is the great forwarding depot through which pass all exiles destined for Central or Eastern Siberia. The prison described by me in the Century Magazine is the exile or forwarding prison; the prison visited and described by Mr. de Windt is a mere place of confinement for
