aware of its existence, his declaration that the "Tomsk prison, as graphically described in the pages of the Century Magazine, does not exist" was deceptive and misleading, and his whole letter was disingenuous. His apparent attempt to evade this dilemma by retorting that I, myself, was ignorant of the existence of a third prison in Tomsk — namely the "Arrestántski," or "Arrestántski Otdyellénie" — only furnishes another proof of the careless way in which he investigates. If he will do me the honor to read — or perhaps read again — the Century article that he criticizes, he will find, on page 873, a reference to this very same "Arrestántski" prison of whose existence he thinks I have been "up till now" unaware. If he will take the further trouble to consult the last published report of the Russian prison administration, he will find that the "Arrestántski" is not "one of its [Siberia's] largest prisons," as he declares it to be, but rather a prison of the fourth or fifth class, through which there passed, in 1888, only about 200 criminals [Rep. of the Russ. Pris. Adm., p. 43, Ministry of the Interior, St. Petersburg, 1890]. Through each of Siberia's "largest prisons," properly so called, there passed, in the same period, from 14,000 to 19,000 suspects, exiles and convicts. [Same Report, pp. 136-137.] The size of the "Arrestántski" prison is not a matter of much importance, but why not describe it accurately, and why not read with attention the literature of one's subject, or at least the statements that one pretends to criticize?
2. Mr. de Windt makes no reply to the facts that I set forth in my previous letter with regard to the overcrowding of the Tomsk forwarding prison in August, 1889, and I presume, from his silence, that he is reserving them for discussion in the "forthcoming work" which is to deal with me and my "allegations against the Russian Government in anything but a careless and superficial way." While awaiting the appearance of this more thorough and accurate piece of work, I beg to submit, for Mr. de Windt's consideration, a few facts with regard to the sanitary condition of the Tomsk prisons as shown by recent official reports. In the year 1887 there passed through the Tomsk city prisons [not including the forwarding prison] 1089 offenders. Of this number 212, or 19.5 per cent., became so seriously ill while in prison as to require hospital treatment. Typhus fever — a preventable filth-disease — constituted 62 per cent. of the whole aggregate of prison sickness. [Rep. of Russ. Pris. Adm. for 1887, pp. 314 and 317, Ministry of the Interior, St. Petersburg, 1889.] In 1886, which is nearer the time to which my investigations relate, the sick in these same prisons constituted 35.2 per cent. of the whole number of prisoners. [Same Rep., p. 315.] In 1887 the proportion of sick prisoners to the whole number that passed through the six prisons "of general type" in the province of Tomsk was more than 37 per cent. [Same Rep., p. 306.] In 1884, the year before I went to Siberia, there were in the prisons of the province of Tomsk three hospitals with 230 beds. In these three prison hospitals there were treated that year 1514 prisoners, of whom 259,
