THE HISTORY OF THE KARA POLITICAL PRISON 227

by theni or sent to them from European Russia, and they could amuse themselves occasionally by working with car- penter's or blacksmith's tools in a small shop situated in one corner of the courtyard. On the other hand, they were living under very bad sanitary conditions; some of them were kept night and day in handcuffs and leg-fetters; two or three of them were chained to wheelbarrows; those who still had possession of their mental faculties were forced to listen constantly to the babbling or the raving of their in- sane comrades; they were no longer allowed to diversify their monotonous existence by work in the gold placers; they were deprived of the privilege of enrolment in the free command at the expiration of their terms of probation; they were forbidden to communicate with their relatives; and their whole world was bounded by the high serrated wall of the prison stockade. That their life was a terribly hard one seems to have been admitted, even by the most indifferent of Siberian officials. In March, 1882, Governor- general Anuchin made a report to the Tsar with regard to the state of affairs in Eastern Siberia, in the course of which he referred to the political convicts at Kara as follows: In concluding this part of my report [upon the prisons and the exile system], I must offer, for the consideration of your Imperial Majesty, a few words concerning the state criminals now living in Eastern Siberia. On the 1st of January, 1882, they numbered in all 430 persons, as follows: a. Sent to Siberia by decree of a court and now 1. In penal servitude 123 2. In forced colonization 49 3. In assigned residences [net zMty6~ . . 41 b. Sent to Siberia by administrative process and now 1. In assigned residences [na zhitelstvo'] 217 Total 430 l 1 It is a noteworthy fact, frankly ad- trial, and without even a pretense of mitted by the governor-general, that judicial investigation. I submit this out of 430 political offenders banished officially stated fact for the attentive to Eastern Siberia, 217 — or more than consideration of the advocates of a

half — had been sent there without Russo-American extradition treaty.