" The dress is of two different kinds; the old and insufficient dress which is usually worn by the prisoners, and another which is distributed when the prison is to be shown to some visitor; but usually it is kept in the store-house...No schools, no libraries...The depots for convicts are still worse...A Foreigner on Russian Prisons. 239 Let us stop before one of the rooms. It is a spacious room with platforms along the walls and narrow passages between. Hundreds of women and children are collected here. It is the so-called family-room, for the families of the convicts. In this dreadful atmosphere you see children of all ages in the greatest misery. No Crown dress is allowed them, and therefore their bodies are covered with rags — with dirty strips of cloth torn to pieces, which can shelter neither from cold nor from wet; and with these rags they will be sent on their journey to Siberia." — Russkiij Vyestnik, 1878.
M. Yadrintseff — the same whom Mr. Lans- dell condescends now to quote — writes as follows about the Siberian prisons which Mr. Lansdell imagines he knows after the hasty visits he has paid to them. I condense the description: — " Almost in every ostrog there is a nearly underground corridor, moist and fetid, a grave; in this corridor are the cells for the more im- portant prisoners waiting for their trial. These cells are half underground. The floor is always wet and rotten. Mould and fungoid growths cover the walls. Water is continually oozing from beneath the floor. A small painted window makes the cell always com- 240 In Russian and French Prisons.
pletely dark. The men are kept there in irons. There is no bedstead, no bed; the prisoners are lying on the floor which is covered with worms and myriads of fleas; and for bed they have rotten straw, for covering their poor cloak, torn to pieces. The moist and cold air makes you shiver even in the summer. The sentry runs away to breathe fresh air. And in such cells the prisoners spend several years, waiting for their trial! These prisoners, even the most healthy of them, become insane. ' I remember to have heard once in the night horrible cries,' says one of the prisoners in his memoirs; * it was a giant who was becoming insane.'
And so on, and so on. I could fill pages with like descriptions. "Was Mr. Lansdell shown all this? If not, was I not right to say that he ought to notice the existing Kussian literature on the subject? And will Mr. Lansdell still maintain that he has noticed it?
As to Herzen's work, Mr. LansdelPs reply deserves a few words more. I have quoted, in my paper on Russian Prisons, a description of the Perm prison, which was written two years ago, that is, in 1881, by an inmate of the A Foreigner on Russian Prisons. 241 prison. It was published by Professor Stasule- vitch in so scrupulously managed a paper as was the Poryadok; it was reproduced by all the newspapers, and was contradicted by no- body; even the usual official denial did not appear. What does Mr. Lansdell oppose to this recent testimony? He writes that he has consulted the memoirs of Alexander Herzen, who was at Perm, 'where one of the prisons is situated of which Prince Kropotkin com- plains so bitterly.' But Herzen was settled at Perm forty years ago; he never was there in a prison, and, as far as I remember, he does not even speak about the prisons at Perm. Shall I suppose that Mr. Lansdell knows of Herzen's work but its title?
As to the title, Mr. Lansdell accuses Herzen again and again of having published a book oil his exile to Siberia without having been there. In the preface to his book, Through Siberia, he writes: — " My speciality in Siberia was the visitation of its prisons and penal institutions, considered, however, not so much from an economic or administrative, as from a philanthropic and religious point of view. Much has been written about tliem that is unsatisfactory, and some it 242 In Russian and French Prisons.
tilings that are absolutely false. One author has published ' My Exile to Siberia ' ivho never went there."
The truth is that Herzen has never written about the prisons and penal institutions of Siberia, in fact, nothing about Siberia at all. He has written his memoirs under the title Past and Thoughts (Byloye i Dumy), one chapter of which, dealing with his incarcera- tion at St. Petersburg and exile to Perm, was entitled "Prison and Exile" (" Tyurma i Ssylka.") It is probably this chapter which was translated into English; and if the Eng- lish publisher has thought it necessary to give it the title of My Exile to Siberia, I suppose that Herzen had nothing to do with that. The French, German, and Italian translations of the same work are simply entitled Prison and Exile?
2 Mr. Lansdell repeats this accusation against Herzen with such a persistence, in different parts of his book, and in the Contemjjorary Review, that, in order to be certain about this subject I wrote to the son of Herzen, the distin- guished Professor of Physiology, A. A. Herzen. Here is a translation of his reply, dated Lausanne, February 26, 1881:— " SIR, — You are quite right; it is merely the part of the memoirs of my father which deals with his arrest and exile; there is not a word about Siberia. It is the English pub- lisher who has added to the title the words ( to Siberia,' A Foreigner on Russian Prisons. 243 In any case, Herzen's Memoirs, forty years old, have nothing to do with Siberia, and still less with the Perm prisons of our time; and that is precisely the subject which interests us.
I wrote further that the chief prison of St. Petersburg, the Litovskiy Zaraok (of which I just have given an idea by quoting a few lines from M. Nikitin's description), is an " old-fashioned, damp, and dark building, which should be simply levelled to the ground." " To this pro- ceeding," Mr. Lansdell says, " I would not utter a word of protest." He admits, too, that I, " perhaps justly," " find a good deal of fault with this prison." Well, I am glad to hear that Mr. Lansdell finds a good deal of fault with one Russian prison; but I regret that, though having visited the Litovskiy Zamok, he did not describe in his book the chief prison of the Russian capital; his readers would know what they have to expect from provincial prisons.
As to the overcrowding of Russian prisons, idtliout the knowledge of my father, and my father has publicly protested at once against this 'humbug* (a I'insu de mon pi re, et mon pere a des alors proteste pulliquement contre ce ( humbug J)..." Believe me, &c., (Signed) A. HERZEN."
R 2 244 IH Russian and French Prisons.
Mr. Lansdell doubts they were so over- crowded as I said. I cannot answer better than by producing a few quotations from the materials I have at hand: — " The Tomsk depot " (writes the corre- spondent of the Siberian Gazette) is over- crowded. To the 1520 people we had, 700 new ones are added, and so the prison which was built for 900 people contains 2220 inmates. There are 207 on the sick-list. (Siberian Gazette and Moscow Telegraph, August 28, 1881.)
At Samara: — "The average number of inmates in our prisons, on the first of each month for this year, was 1147; the aggregate cubic capacity of all our prisons being for 552 inmates." (Golos, May 13, 1882.)
At Nijniy-Novgorod: — " The prison, built for 300 men, contains, while the rivers are open for navigation, as many as 700, some- times 800 prisoners." (Official report men- tioned by the Golos, March, 1882.)
In Poland: — "Each place in the prisons of Poland is occupied by four prisoners instead of one. It is proposed to build a number of new prisons" (they are not yet built). (Moscow Telegraph, November, 1881.)
Shall I fill one page or more with like A Foreigner on Russian Prisons. 245 quotations, or, rather, see what is said by official persons entrusted with the supervision of prisons: — M. Mouravioff, a contributor to M. Katoff's review, in an elaborate paper on Russian prisons (written precisely in the spirit that the admirers of the Russian Government like), says: — " Almost all our prisons contain one and a half to twice the number of prisoners for which they were built." (" Prisons and the Prison Question," RussJdy Vyestnik, 1878.)
The Siberian stryapchiy, M. Mishlo, writes about Siberian prisons which were under his own control: — " The jailor brought me to the rooms. Everywhere dirt, overcrowding, wet, want of air and light. After having visited the rooms, I entered the hospital. As soon as I entered the first room I involuntarily shrank back before the unutterable stench...The cabinets were luxurious apartments in com- parison with the hospital...Everywhere the number of prisoners is thrice the number ad- mitted by the law. At V. (Yerkhneudinsk), for instance, the ostrog is built for 240 inmates, and usually contains 800." (Otechestvennyia Zapiski, 1881.)
It was precisely to such overcrowding, 246 In Russian and French Prisons.
together with a phenomenal amount of dirt, that the famous typhus epidemic at the Kieff prison was due. It may have been imported by Turkish prisoners, as the authorities said, but its dreadful ravages were owing to over- crowding and filth. " Buildings erected for 550 inmates contained twice this number," says the Golos correspondent, in a letter dated the 30bh of October, 1880; and he adds:- " The professors of the University who have visited the prison, arrived, as known, at the conclusion that overcrowding was the chief cause of the epidemic." The circular of the Chief Director of Prisons (mentioned in chap- ter II.) confirms, in its first paragraphs, the exactitude of this conclusion. No wonder that, after a partial evacuation of the prison, there were still 200 laid up with typhus out of 750 inmates. No wonder also that the mor- tality at Kharkoff has assumed the proportion (200 out of 500) described by the priest of the prison, in a sermon which was reproduced by the local Eparcliial Gazette — a paper appearing under the supervision of the Archbishop.
I come now to the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, where Mr. Lansdell was admitted to look through inspecting holes into the cells of A Foreigner on Russian Prisons. 247 the Troubetskoi bastion and to enter an empty cell, and where I was kept for nearly two years in the same building.
The system of Mr. Lansdell in dealing with this subject is really very strange. He men- tions first what a friend of his (a person of high " intelligence and probity," who " moves in high circles at St. Petersburg") said about prisoners in the fortress. They were fed, he said, " with salt herrings and given no water to drink, so that they became half mad with thirst;" this "business was only stopped by Count Schouvaloff;" but his friend "still thinks that drugs are sometimes given to prisoners to make them frantic, in the hope that during their excitement they may be led to confess." Then he describes his own visit to the fortress, and how he " peeped breath- lessly," after having " duly prepared his nerves to see how this arch-offender is treated." And as he is shown nothing but a man lying at this moment on his bed, or a lady reading at her table, he discharges his bad temper against the " exaggerated and vindictive expressions of released prisoners " who " vilify the land of their punishment," &c. I really do not see how the " vindictive " writers could be held 248 In Russian and French Prisons.
responsible for the opinions of Mr. Lansdell's friends, who probably gather their information from the high circles where they move, and have sufficient intelligence to discriminate between mere fables and reality.
As to " vindictive writers " who are accused of exaggerations, there is only one who has written about the Troubetskoi bastion, and this one seems to be quite unknown to Mr. Lansdell — I mean Pavlovsky, who has pub- lished in the Paris Temps (in 1878, I think) a description of his imprisonment in the fortress, with a preface by Tourgueneff, whose name is a sufficient guarantee of the absolute trustworthi- ness of Pavlovsky's description. Mr. Lans- dell's diatribes against " exaggerated and vindictive expressions " of released prisoners, are, therefore, mere flowers of polemics.
If Mr. Lansdell had limited himself to the description of what he saw, and had added that those prisoners whom he saw in the bastion were waiting for trial, or for exile without trial, for two, three years, or more, he would have merely done what he ought to do. But he goes on to deny the descriptions of such parts of the fortress which, he has not seen, and of which he has not the slightest idea.
I had brought to the knowledge of public A Foreigner on Russian Prisons. 249 opinion in England, in order to show the hypocrisy of our Government, the treatment to which were submitted, the condemned revolu- tionists, who, instead of being sent to Siberia, according to law, were kept in the fortress, in dark cells, without any occupation, and were brought to madness, or on the edge of the grave, in the proportion of five to ten in less than one year. This I had written, according to a description published in the Will of the People and in the pamphlet Na Rodinye, as I knew that each word of this description is absolutely exact.
This part of the fortress (where ShiryaefF, Okladsky, Tikhonoff, Martynovsky, Tsukerman, &c., were kept in 188], that is, the Trubetskoi ravelin, not the bastion) was not shown to Mr. Lansdell, and he knows absolutely nothing about it; so that the only account which, in myopinion, he was entitled to give was the following: — " Although Count Tolstoy had promised me that I should see everything (he might say), but I was shown only that building where prisoners are kept when waiting for trial, and the Cour- tine, where I found no political prisoners. I was not shown any building where con- demned Terrorists were kept, and I do not re- member any of the names mentioned in the 250 In Russian and French Prisons.
Times being named to me in the Trubetskoi bastion. So I can say nothing about the fate of Shiiyaeff, Okladsky, and their comrades. In fact, I have visited only one bastion out of six, and have no idea about what the ravelins and the remainder of the fortress may contain."
That would have been, I think, the only correct way to give an account of his visit to the fortress, and this the more as, out of two informants of Mr. Lansdell — both belonging to the State secret police — one (who belonged to the third section), said that he has visited once a building with cells underground which were " lighted from the corridor above, hardly enough," he said, " to read," which cells are probably the same that I have mentioned, where lamps are lighted for twenty-two hours out of twenty-four; and the other informant (" a chief of the gendarmerie") mentioned a more com- fortable building, three stories high, in the Alexis Ravelin, where prisoners were kept too. There are thus at least two prisons, or two suites of cells, which were not shown to Mr. Lansdell. But notwithstanding that, Mr. Lansdell tries to cast a doubt upon the just- mentioned description of the shameful treat- ment to which Shiryaeff, Okladsky, and their A Foreigner on Russian Prisons. 251 comrades were submitted, and, in order to show its inaccuracy, tells us a long story about a Russian, Mr. Robinson, who was kept, some twenty years ago, for three years (without being brought before a court) in the Alexis Ravelin, and was treated there as in a good hotel. Everybody will understand, however, that Mr. Robinson's case has absolutely nothing to do with that of Shiryaeff and Okladsky, and that the well-lighted room where he was kept (like hundreds of students and young men arrested at the same epoch) has nothing to do with the suite of dark cells mentioned not only by " vindic- tive writers," but even by a third section in- formant of Mr. Lansdell. The fortress covers several hundred acres, and contains all kinds of buildings, from the palace of the Comman- dant to the cells where people are brought to death, or madness, in the course of a few months. There is, however, one point upon which Mr. Lansdell' s doubts are justifiable. It is when he doubts that physical torture has been applied to Ryssakoif. We doubted also. But, who will be convinced of the contrary by such arguments of Mr. Lansdell as these: — Nobody was tortured in his presence, and Mr. Jones, a British subject, who was arrested once, and set 252 In Ritssian and French Prisons.
at liberty after an examination which lasted for a quarter of an hour, was not put to tor- ture! 3 Everybody understands that torture would not be applied in the fortress under the eyes of Mr. Lansdell, and still less to Mr. Jones.
But Mr. Lansdell has made up his mind that after having seen a corner of the fortress, one would know everything about it; and he goes still further, he victoriously exclaims — " What, then, have become of the cachots, oubliettes, and dismal chambers which have been connected with the Peter and Paul by so many? " Well, I also know the Troubetskoi bastion; I know also the rooms of the Courtine; still I should never permit myself, on the ground of this limited knowledge, either to affirm or to deny the existence of oubliettes in the fortress. I should not affirm their existence, as I know that oubliettes are usually discovered only after a 14th of July; and I should not deny it, as I know that the Troubetskoi bastion does not embody even a tenth part of the fortifications of the fortress. The facts given in a foregoing chapter amply prove that there are oubliettes, with men therein, and that Mr. Lansdell. in A Foreigner on Russian Prisons. 253 denying their existence, has pushed too far his zeal in whitewashing the Russian Government. And now let me add a few words about the difficulties which beset the way of those who earnestly wish to know the real state of Russian prisons. I shall not follow Mr. Lansdell's example, and accuse him of a want of good faith for his holding different views on Russian prisons from our Russian explorers and my- self. I am fully aware of the difficulties one meets with in this way. I know them from my own experience, and still more from the written experience of those who attempted to make on a larger scale an inquiry into the state of our prisons. Even officials, to whom their official position opened the doors of the prisons at any time, and who had plenty of time before them to pursue their inquiry, openly acknow- ledge these difficulties. All serious explorers of our penal institutions are unanimous in saying that one learns nothing from a mere inspection of a prison. " Each prison undergoes a magical change when a visitor is expected," says one of them. " I did not recognize the lock-up which I had visited incognito, when I went afterwards to the same lock-up in my official quality," says another. " The prisoners never 254 In Russian and French Prisons.
unveil to an inspector the horrors committed in the prison, as they know that the inspector goes away and the jailer remains," says a third explorer. One must know the prisons beforehand to discover the horrible blackholes, like those described by MM. Nikitin and Yad- rintseff, as they obviously will never be shown to a visitor who knows nothing about them; and so on.
Such being the difficulties for Russian officials, they are still greater for a foreigner. He is in the worst imaginable position, on account of the continuous fear of Russian administrators of being treated by the foreign press as barbarians. He has before him this dilemma. Either he will thoroughly inquire into the state of the prisons, he will go to the bottom, and he will discover the bestialities of the Makaroffs, the Trepoffs, and their acolytes; and then he will not receive permission to visit prisons. Or, he will make only an official scamper through a few prisons; he will know nothing but what the Government is willing to let him know; and, being unable to test for himself what is reported to him by officials, he will become the vehicle for bringing to public knowledge what his official acquaintances desire to be published. Such is the case of Mr. Lansdell.
A Foreigner on Russian Prisons. 255 But the greater the difficulties, the greater must be the efforts of those who really are desirous to know the truth; and we have seen foreigners who have vanquished these difficulties. One may differ with Mr. Mackenzie Wallace on many points, perhaps himself would change now his opinion on several subjects; but still his book, though not received with congratu- lations by MM. Katkoff and Tolstoy, was re- cognized unanimously by the independent Rus- sian press as a serious and conscious work. And as to our prisons, several Russian officials, by displaying much patience and by spending much time, have come to learn the true state of our penal institutions. The English prisons are not Russian ostrogs. But if a foreigner went to EDgland, without knowing a word of English, without taking the pains to study what was written in England about her penal institutions, and, after having paid a hasty visit to some prisons, should write that all those who hold different views on prisons from him- self are merely inspired with a feeling of vin- dictiveness, surely he would be accused of great levity and presumption. But Russia is not England, and to know the truth in Russia is far more difficult.
Levity is always regrettable, but it is the 256 In Russian and French Prisons.
more regrettable in questions like this, and in a country like Russia. For twenty years all honest men in our country have been loudly crying against our prisons, and loudly asking for an immediate reform. For twenty years public opinion vainly asks for a thorough reno- vation of the prison administration, for more light, for more supervision in the whole system. And the Government, which refuses that, will be only too glad if it can answer them: " You see, there is a foreigner who knows every- thing about prisons throughout the world, and who thinks that all you say is mere exaggera- tion; that our prisons are not at all bad in comparison with those of other countries."
When thousands, nay, a hundred thousand, of men, women, and children are groaning under the abominable regime of prisons which we see in Russia, one ought to proceed with the greatest cautiousness; and I earnestly invite the foreigners who may be tempted to study this question, never to forget that each attempt to extenuate the dark features of our prisons will be a stone brought to consolidate the abominable regime we have now.
In French Prisons. 257 CHAPTER VIII.
IN FRENCH PRISONS.1 THE St. Paul prison at Lyons, where I spent the first three months of my incarceration, is not one of those old, dilapidated, and damp dungeons which are still resorted to in many French provincial towns for lodging prisoners. It is a modern prison, and pretends to rank among the best prisons departementales. It covers a wide area enclosed by a double girdle of high walls; its buildings are spacious, of modern architecture, and clean in aspect; and in its general arrangement the modern ideas in penitentiary matters have been taken into account, as well as all necessary precautions for making it a stronghold in the case of a revolt. Like other departmental prisons, its destination is to receive those prisoners who are awaiting their trial, as also those of the 1 Keprinted from the Nineteenth Century, by permission.
8 258 In Russian and French Prisons.
condemned whose penalty does not exceed one year of imprisonment. A subterraneous gallery connects it with another spacious prison for women — the St. Joseph.
It was on a December night that I arrived there from Thonon, accompanied by three gendarmes. After the usual questions, I was introduced into a pistole which had been cleaned and heated for receiving me, and this pistole became my abode until the following March. On a payment of six francs per month and three francs to the waiter, each prisoner in- carcerated for the first time may hire a pistole during his preventive incarceration, and thus avoid living in the cells. The pistole is also a cell, but it is somewhat wider and much cleaner than the cells proper. A deep window under the ceiling gives enough of light, and six or seven paces may be measured on its stone pavement, from one corner to the opposite one. It has a clean bed and a small iron stove heated with coke, and for one who is occupied and is accustomed to solitude it is a tolerably comfortable dwelling-place — provided the in- carceration does not last too long.
Not so the cells, which occupy a separate wing of the prison. Their arrangement is the In French Prisons. 259 same as everywhere now in Europe: you enter a broad and high gallery, on both sides of which you see two or three stories of iron balconies; all along these balconies are the doors of the cells, each of which is ten feet long and six or seven feet wide, and has an iron bed, a small table, and a small bench — all three made fast to the walls. These cells are very dirty at Lyons, full of bugs, and never heated, notwithstanding the wetness of the climate and the fogs, which rival in density, if not in colour, those of London. The gas-burner is never lighted, and so the prisoner remains in an absolute obscurity and idleness from five, or even four on a winter night, until the next morning. Each prisoner himself cleans his cell; that is, he descends every morning to the yard to empty and wash his bucket with dirty water, and he enjoys its exhalations during the day. Even the simplest accommodation for avoiding this inconvenience, which we found later on at Clairvaux, has not been introduced at Lyons. Of course, no occupation is given to the prisoners during the preventive incarce- ration, and they mostly remain in perfect idleness throughout the day. The prison begins to exercise its demoralizing influence O o s 2 O o s 2 260 In Russian and French Prisons.
as soon as the prisoner has entered within its walls.
Happily enough, the imprisonment before the trial is not so dreadfully protracted as in my own mother-country. If the affair is not too complicated, it is brought before the next assizes, which sit every three months, or before the following ones; and cases where the pre- ventive incarceration lasts for more than ten or twelve months are exceptional. As to those affairs which are disposed of by the Police Correctionnelle Courts, they are usually ter- minated— always by a condemnation — in the course of one month, or even a fortnight. A few prisoners, already condemned, are also kept in the cells — there being a recent law which permits the prisoners to make their time in cellular imprisonment, three months of which are counted as four months of the penalty. This category, however, is not numerous, a special permission of the Ministry being necessary in each separate case.
Small yards, paved with asphalte, and one of them subdivided into three narrow compart- ments for the inmates of the cellular depart- ment, occupy the spaces between the high wings of the prison. There the prisoners take some hi French Prisons. 261 exercise, or spend several hours in such work as may be done out-doors. Every morning I could see from my window some fifty men descending into the yard; there, taking seats on the asphalte pavement, they were beating the wound-off cocoons from which the floss silk is obtained. Through ray window, or while occasionally passing by, I sometimes saw also swarms of boys invading one of the yards; and at a three years' distance I cannot re- member these boys without a sad feeling and heartburn.
The condemnations pronounced against children by the always condemning Police, Correctionnelle Courts are, in fact, much more ferocious than those pronounced against adults. The adult may be condemned to a few months or a few years of imprisonment; the boy is invariably sent for the same crime to a " House of Correction," to be kept there until his eighteenth or twenty-first year. When the prosecutions against the Anarchists at Lyons had reached their culminating-point, a boy of fifteen, Cirier, was condemned by the Lyons Court of Appeal to be kept in prison until the age of twenty-one, for having abused the police in a speech pronounced at a public meeting.
262 In Russian and French Prisons.
The president of the same meeting, for exactly the same offence, was condemned to one year of imprisonment, and he is long since at liberty, while the boy Cirier will remain for several years more in prison. Similar condemnations are quite usual in French Courts.