Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/195

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THE KARÁ "FREE COMMAND"

My frankness and my childlike confidence in him finally began to produce the desired results. His manner softened and became more cordial; he poured out for me a third or a fourth cup of tea, asked me if I would not like to have some rum in it; and then, finding that I could be a sympathetic listener as well as a frank and communicative talker, he began to give me information about himself. He described to me the organization of the gendarmerie and the way in which gendarme officers are educated; gave me his own personal history; told me how many times and under what circumstances he had been promoted; how much salary he received; what decorations he had; how much longer he would have to serve before he could retire on a pension; and said, with a little pride, that he was the only officer of his rank in all Siberia who had the right to communicate directly with the Minister of the Interior. The conversation finally drifted into a discussion of common-criminal exile, and to my great surprise he vigorously condemned the étapes and the forwarding prisons; declared that the life of common convicts on the road was simply awful; and said that the banishment of criminals to Siberia was not only ruinous to the persons banished, but very detrimental to all the interests of the country. To me this was a wholly unexpected turn, and for a moment I hardly knew what course to take. He might be merely posing, as a philanthropist, — a sort of Howard in a gendarme officer's uniform, — or he might be luring me on with a view to finding out how much I knew and what my opinions were. An instant of reflection convinced me that my safest course would be to follow his lead, without betraying too much knowledge of the subject, and to lay as much stress as possible on the few good prisons that I had seen. I therefore deplored the overcrowding of the forwarding prisons and the bad sanitary condition of the étapes, but referred to the new central prison at Vérkhni Údinsk as an evidence that the Government was trying to improve the condition

I remarked that that would be a very pleasant thing to see, as well as to write about, and asked him if there would be any objection to my taking a look into one of the kámeras.

"Well — yes," he replied hesitatingly. "I have no authority to allow any one to inspect the prison. I can show you, however, some of the books from the library — even English books."

He thereupon called a soldier from the hall and sent him to the prison with orders to bring back any English books or periodicals that happened to be in. The soldier shortly returned with a copy of Shelley's poems and a recent number of Punch. These Nikólin handed to me triumphantly, as proofs that the political convicts had a library, and were even furnished with English periodicals.

"Not long ago," he continued, "they had theatrical performances in one of the kámeras; and at one time they actually published a little manuscript newspaper for their own amusement."

He then got out the prison books to show me how much money the political convicts had received from their relatives that year. The total amount was 6044 rúbles, or about $3022.^[1]

"Do the prisoners themselves have the spending of this money?" I inquired.

↑ Upon my return to Irkútsk I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of an officer who was employed in the Comptroller's Department, and who had access to all the accounts of the Kará prisons. I asked him if he would be kind enough to ascertain for me how much money had been sent to the political convicts at Kará by their relatives in the first ten months of 1885. He made the investigation and reported that the prisoners had received, on an average, 37½ cents a month per capita, or about $375 in all. Captain Nikólin apparently had shown me a "fixed-up" and deceptive statement, for the purpose of making me believe that the political convicts were in receipt of $3000 or $4000 a year over and above their subsistence, and that, consequently, they were living in comparative luxury. I have no doubt that the computation made by the officer of the Comptroller's Department in Irkútsk was an accurate one, and that $375 was really the amount that the prisoners had received. Why the sum was not larger I shall explain in another place. Three hundred and seventy-five dollars every ten months, if divided among a hundred convicts, would give each of them about a cent and a quarter a day.

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[1] Upon my return to Irkútsk I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of an officer who was employed in the Comptroller's Department, and who had access to all the accounts of the Kará prisons. I asked him if he would be kind enough to ascertain for me how much money had been sent to the political convicts at Kará by their relatives in the first ten months of 1885. He made the investigation and reported that the prisoners had received, on an average, 37½ cents a month per capita, or about $375 in all. Captain Nikólin apparently had shown me a "fixed-up" and deceptive statement, for the purpose of making me believe that the political convicts were in receipt of $3000 or $4000 a year over and above their subsistence, and that, consequently, they were living in comparative luxury. I have no doubt that the computation made by the officer of the Comptroller's Department in Irkútsk was an accurate one, and that $375 was really the amount that the prisoners had received. Why the sum was not larger I shall explain in another place. Three hundred and seventy-five dollars every ten months, if divided among a hundred convicts, would give each of them about a cent and a quarter a day.