THE HISTOEY OF THE KARA POLITICAL PRISON 267

a single blow, and that, furthermore, since he was not legally obliged to witness punishments inflicted by administrative order and without the sentence of a court, he should decline to be present. [It should be noted here that there had been no formal inquiry into the circumstances of Madam Sigida's case and no ex- amination [sledstvie].] The governor of the Kara penal estab- lishment, Gomuletski, did not at once execute the order of the governor-general, but reported to his immediate superior the state- ment and declaration of the prison surgeon. Baron Korf there- upon directed that the previous order be executed without the presence of the surgeon. Gomuletski still put off the punishment, Masiukof refused to take charge of the affair, and finally Bobrof- ski — the same officer who had ill-treated Madam Kavalskaya — was brought from Nerchinski Zavod to serve as executioner. [I forgot to mention in its proper place the fact that after the Kavalskaya affair Bobrofski was promoted to be assistant super- intendent of the convict prisons in the whole Nerchinsk mining district.] On the 6th of November, 1889, Bobrofski arrived at Kara, and immediately carried the order of Governor-general Korf into execution. Many stories are in circulation with regard to the repulsive de- tails of this infernal act of cruelty, but I will not write them to you because I cannot answer for the truthfulness of them. After the execution Madam Sigida, in a state of unconsciousness, was carried back into the prison, and on the 8th or 9th of Novem- ber she died — I think from poison. On the night of the 10th Marie Kavalefskaya, Marie Kaliizhnaya, and Nadezhda Smirnits- kaya, who also had taken poison, were brought from their cells to the prison hospital, and died there, one after another. 1 A few days later — November 15th — Dr. Gurvich was summoned by Ma- siukof to the men's political prison to treat twenty more con- 1 Miss Marie Kaliizhnaya, aged ten or twelve years ago — was a stu- twenty-three, was the daughter of a dent in one of the high schools for merchant in Odessa, and had been con- women [vuishi zhenski hurst] in St. demned to twenty years of penal servi- Petersburg. She had been sentenced tude. Her story may be fouud in the to fifteen years of penal servitude, article entitled "Prison Life of the ["Russian State Prisoners," Century Russian Revolutionists," in The Century Magazine for March, 1888, p. 759.] Magazine for December, 1887, p. 289. The story and portrait of Madam Miss Hope Smirnitskaya, aged thirty- Kavalefskaya were given in chapter seven, was the daughter of a Russian VII of this volume. [Author's note.]

priest, and at the time of her arrest —