APPENDIX 539

etaient mal adaptees et quelques-unes tout a fait impropres a cet usage, ou bien que d'autres etaient situees dans edifices appartenant a l'Etat mais ainenages pour des services tout differents — celles memes des pris- ons qui etaient construites specialement, comme telles se faisaient remar- quer, dans la majorite des cas, par leur etat de vetuste, l'humidite qui y regnait, l'insuffisance de Fair et de la lumiere, le peu de commodite des arrangements interieurs, et l'etat affreux dans lequel etaient entretenus les lieux d'aisance. Certains edifices, a la lettre, offraient l'aspect de ruins ; d'autres n'avaient pas d'enceinte exterieure manquaient de cuis- ines, de fours a pain, de bains, de bouanderies, de sechoirs, corps-de- garde caves et hangars. L'absence de locaux pour les ateliers etait un phenomene presque general. La meme ou. autrefois avaient existe des ateliers, par exemple les ateliers de prisons des provinces de la Vistule ; il fallait les fermer et les transformer en locaux d'habitation. Beaucoup de prisons manquaient de quartiers de femmes et de logements pour le per- sonnel penitentiaire. — Administration Generate des Prisons, Apercu de son Activite pend- ant la Periode Decennale, 1879 - 1889, pp. 6-8. St. Petersbourg, 1890. In a review of the report from which the above extract has been made, the Russian Gazetteoi Moscow says : " Upon reviewing the operations of the chief prison administration for the past ten years, we must recognize the fact that, with unquestionably good intentions, it has not succeeded, up to the present time, in removing a single one of the crying evils of the ex- ile system." — Russian Gazette, No. 234, p. 1. Moscow, July 25, 1889. Statement of ex-Senator Grot, formerly president of the Russian prison council, with regard to the condition of Russian prisons. .... The whole penitentiary question in Russia is in a state of tran- sition and reform. It would be very difficult to furnish extended details of the actual condition of the prisons, especially as the old adminis- tration, in expectation of a reform whose commencement dates only from the year 1860, neither could nor would, in these latter years, put in oper- ation any radical measures. All that I can say is that the state of our prisons is very bad. We bave neither good prison structures, nor em- ployes specially prepared for the prison service. The labor is imperfectly organized, and tbe greater part of the prisoners have nothing to do. Even the youths are not everywhere separated from the adult prisoners. It must be said, however, that in these later times the penitentiary ques- tion has great interest for the Russian public, and books begin to issue from the press relating to it. — Letter to Mr. E. C. Wines, quoted in the second annual report of the

U. S. Commissioner of Labor, p. 455, Washington, 1887.