CHAPTER XV RUSSIAN PRISONS AND PRISONERS

Our Convict System—Misunderstood in England—Siberia, an Emigration Field—A Lax Discipline—Capt. Wiggins' Opinion—A Land of Stoicism—My Experiences as a Prison Visitor—Divine Literature—Helen Voronoff's Work—A Russian Heroine—Her Descriptions of Prison Life


To the Englishman the word "Siberia" seems to possess a significance so sinister as to make death appear almost a luxury; but imprisonment and the conditions under which the prisoners live are entirely comparative. To condemn a gourmet to live on roast beef and cabbage would be a punishment much greater than to sentence a farm labourer to live on porridge and black bread.

In England our "atrocious convict system" has been a subject for much comment. I think very few people in England have any conception of what Siberia really is.

Some, I have no doubt, who speak most freely about it, would be in some difficulty if they were asked to describe where it is. As a matter of fact it is the northern half of the Continent of Asia, greater in area than the whole of Europe. The north is almost uninhabitable, but we do not send our criminals to the north, but to the fertile south. {217} It is mostly in the fertile south that our present colonies exist. We used to send to the quicksilver mines only the worst criminals and murderers, with whom I do not think even English people would have much sympathy.

After all, would a man prefer to work in a quicksilver mine or to be hanged? Another very important point is that transportation to Siberia does not necessarily involve imprisonment. In some cases the convicts are turned loose to look after themselves, and are allowed to go whither they will, provided they do not attempt to return to European Russia. Moreover, the families of the convicts used also to be transported at the expense of the Government—which was, of course, a great consolation to them. But now the whole system of transportation to Siberia has been abolished.

We wish to do with them just what England strove to do with her criminals in the first half of last century—get rid of them. They are undesirable citizens, and as all good government is the greatest good to the greatest number, the best thing that can happen is to get the criminal population away from the non-criminal, so that one does not contaminate the other.

In the old days the English convict was compelled to work under the penalty of "the cat" or the gallows. On the other hand, the Russian convict is sent into Siberia, and there he can do what he chooses, short of actual crime. As a matter of fact, in Russia there is a strong feeling in certain quarters that our convicts have too much liberty.

Let me bring the matter nearer home. Suppose {218} instead of being sent to Portland and shut up in a grim and gloomy building, English prisoners were sent to the extreme north of Scotland and given their liberty, and told they must not come further south than a certain point, is there any question as to which of the two they would choose?

If English people could be persuaded to regard Siberia as a huge field for emigration, they would understand things much better, and in sending our convicts there we serve a double purpose—that is to say, we get rid of them, and we are colonising the country that an Englishman has described as "offering unique advantages to a young man with a small capital."

The proportion of prisoners sent to Siberia per annum is about one in every five thousand of the population, not a very high average I think. In England and Wales, I believe, the average is vastly higher.

To give some idea of the lack of constraint on the liberty of the convict, I will give some particulars of escapes.

On one occasion, when a census was taken of the convicts in Tobolsk, out of some fifty thousand exiles only about thirty-four thousand could be found.

At Tomsk, five thousand were missing out of thirty thousand.

There is one very serious drawback to our system, that is our method of pitchforking convicts into Siberia without arranging for their occupation, and the result is that a large number of them refuse to take to honest labour, and become good-for-nothings. {219} Siberia is not a holiday resort. No one could possibly regard it as challenging the Riviera, for instance; its primary object is to rid European Russia of her criminal population, and in this it succeeds.

The redoubtable Captain Wiggins has described the convicts in Siberia as "a happy, rollicking, joyous community—well clad, well fed, and well cared for."

I do not propose to comment on this, but shall leave the matter between the British Public and the shade of Captain Wiggins. Some may be inclined to recall a passage from Sir Thomas Browne which runs (I quote from memory), "There be those who would credit the relations of mariners."

In the past there has been a tendency in England to look for archangelic qualities in her neighbours, and she has been a little hurt at not finding them. Once when writing to me in 1876, Mr. Gladstone said:

"The history of nations is a melancholy chapter, that is, the history of their Governments. I am sorrowfully of opinion that, though virtue of splendid quality dwells in high regions with individuals, it is chiefly to be found on a large scale with the masses; and the history of nations is one of the most immoral parts of human history."

I have heard it stated of Mr. Gladstone that he was too true a gentleman to be a good politician. Upon that I will venture no comment beyond saying that I am convinced that he never did anything in his life actuated by any other idea than that it was right.

{220}

The same morality that applies in private life never has and probably never will apply to Governments, and to expect perfection in relation to the treatment of prisoners in Siberia, or of Chinese labour in South Africa, is out of the question.

I cannot do better than quote here what I said in my introduction to Siberia As It Is, by Harry de Windt:

"To form a proper opinion of the Russian prisons, it is necessary to possess, what English people certainly do not possess, some knowledge of the ordinary conditions of life in our country. A preface to any book on Russia ought, in fact, to be somewhat of an introduction into the penetralia of our innermost existence. But in giving real facts about our country, I have the feeling of printing advertisements about ourselves—to us Russians a very antipathetic work indeed.

"Russia is, over a great extent, a land of stoicism, fortified by Christianity—not a bad basis for the formation of character, after all, but it is a hard school. Our country life is an important study. It is full of self-denial, of hardships, of privations. Indeed, in some parts peasant life is so hard that we, the so-called upper classes, could scarcely endure it.

"Landed proprietors are generally in close intercourse with their ex-serfs. The latter, though now perfectly free and themselves landowners, from the fact that their former masters have at heart their welfare, na?vely think that the latter are still under obligation to furnish help when needed. This somewhat amusing relationship is generally accepted good-naturedly by the ex-masters, though very often {221} it involves great material sacrifices. We could all give our personal experiences of village life, and I, for one, venture to do so, though there are many others better qualified.

"To visit the sick and the poor is a common duty recognised by a great many in our country, although the discharge of this duty sometimes is rather an ordeal. How overcrowded and dark are their dwellings! How poor their daily food! (The only approach to the condition that I know of in the United Kingdom is in the poverty-stricken districts of Ireland and in some corners of the East End of London.) Yet those who lead that rough life seem strong and happy, on the whole. They will make merry jokes, and after a long day's heavy work, from sunrise to sunset, return home from the fields, singing and dancing.

"Injudicious and indiscriminate charity would do harm here as elsewhere. In illustration of this, I will mention the following from my own experience:

"My son, when appointed Zemski Natchalnik (Zemski chief), built a church over his father's grave and founded two schools for training male and female teachers on our Tamboff estate.

"The principal local representatives of the Church and the chiefs of our local school inspectors were invited to discuss the programme of the teaching and management of these schools—one for boarders, future primary school teachers, with a class for daily pupils of the parish. They used to be almost free of charge before the emancipation of the serfs. So were both my son's schools. But now—since they depend on the Holy Synod—education has {222} to be paid for. The yearly Seminarian's fee for board, dress and education is ￡10 yearly. The girls' (future school mistresses) fee is ￡8—but they will soon be increased. All our schools for the people are, and have always been, free of charge.

"The educational scheme met with almost unanimous approval, but when the boarding arrangements came to be discussed, with suggestions about 'light mattresses and pillows,' they were met by a general outburst of disapproval.

"'Here you are wrong. Why should you spoil them, and make them unfit for their usual life, by accustoming them to unnecessary luxuries? The utmost you should provide, as a comfort for peasant boys, is some straw, and a plain bench to sleep on. Nothing more.' I may add, that this stoic simplicity partly accounts for their bravery.

"It may perhaps interest my readers to know that there is such a thirst for learning amongst our peasant children that candidates come in overwhelming numbers, and this happens to all our educational institutions—they are overcrowded to the last degree. The population increases more quickly than church and school accommodation for it. That inconvenience is also noticeable with regard to the children of our prisoners. But to people accustomed to a very hard life, would it be a punishment if, instead of suffering discomfort for their crimes, they were surrounded with what to them would appear extreme luxury? Where is one to draw the line between necessaries and luxuries? A prison ought to be a punishment, not a reward for crimes.

{223}

"In visiting the prisons I have heard the remark that some of the convicts would not have committed their misdeeds had they possessed at home half the comforts provided in the prisons, though, of course, the privation of every liberty is already a terrible punishment. They also know that whilst they are away, good care is taken of their children. I remember a female prisoner, who had to suffer a year's punishment for theft and smuggling, whose looks of distress and misery forcibly struck me. Knowing that she was near the end of her term, I asked how it was that she did not look happier.

"'I am pining for my boy; I feel sure he is dead. I wrote to him twice, but he never replied,' answered she, sobbing. 'He was taken up as a beggar and a vagabond by the Beggars' Committee.'

"'Well,' said I, 'since you can tell me where he may be found, I will go and see him at once, and you shall know the exact truth about him. Wait patiently till I come back.'

"Off I went to the 'Beggars' Institution,' which is a branch of the prisons, though geographically a great distance away, and had the boy brought to me. He looked clean and healthy.

"'Your mother sends you her blessing,' I began; 'she is in good health, but grieves that you never answered her letters. Have they not reached you?'

"'Oh yes, they have, but I cannot write. I began learning here, and can only write O's and pothooks.'

"As I always provide myself with writing materials on visiting the prisons, and am always ready in deserving cases to write letters, dictated to {224} me by illiterate prisoners, I offered my services to the little beggar boy.

"He seemed radiant. 'Yes, tell her that I am very well fed here, three times every day. Food plentiful.'

"'What else?' asked I. 'Would you not like to see your mother? Don't you go to church every Sunday, and don't you pray for her?'

"'Oh yes. Tell her to come to live with me here.'

"You should have seen the joy of the mother when I brought her this very undiplomatic despatch, and the interest created amongst her fellow-prisoners!

"To help the wretched is a pleasure thoroughly appreciated by Russians. It is absurd to preach to us charity and compassion. We are brought up in those notions from our childhood. Christianity with us is not a vague term; it represents a very clear 'categorical principle' which forms a link between all of us, from the Emperor down to the humblest peasant. Our highest classes are very well represented in that respect. First comes our Empress Marie, the present Dowager Empress, who is the soul of charity and compassion. I never heard of any appeal made to her in vain. Nor could anybody, I think, be kinder than the Emperor. His aunt, the Grand Duchess Constantine, notwithstanding the endless demands on her generosity, once undertook to feed a thousand famine-stricken peasants in our district till next harvest. I could also give other examples from amongst the Imperial family.

{225}

"Then, coming to a lower rank, we had, for instance, the procurator of the Holy Synod, M. Pobédonostzeff, and his wife. The latter, though far from strong in health, takes care of a large school, visiting it almost daily. With the support and sympathy of her husband, she collected large sums every year in order to send to the prisoners of Sakhalin (our worst criminals) quantities of clothes, useful tools, tobacco and toys, writing materials and religious books. Our lower classes only care for 'divine literature,' as they call it. Religious books are in great demand in every part of Russia, which helps to defeat Nihilistic teaching, and saves the people from that criminal folly.

"Or take another well-known case: a man of good birth and worldly prospects, a distinguished Moscow professor, Serge Ratchinsky, who, without any of that self-advertisement which seems to be the necessary stimulus to similar efforts in Western Europe, buried himself in the country, and there founded a school which has served as a model for ten or twelve other schools in the same province, and which he superintends and guides with fatherly care, and in strictly Greek Orthodox views. He also organised a large temperance movement, which is now spreading throughout Russia.

"I could give numerous instances to show that philanthropy, far from being unknown, is widely practised in Russia. In fact, it permeates all our work, including the prisons.

"Our great Empress, Catherine II, used to say: 'Better pardon ten criminals than punish one innocent.' This became a favourite saying with us, {226} and perhaps accounts for the leniency of our juries, which is often carried too far. For what right have we to endanger the public safety by allowing crime to reign unchecked?

"In England murderers are quietly hanged. According to us, this is going too far. How are you to manifest Christian compassion and love to sinners when they are so quickly and definitely disposed of?

"What chance have they to repent? Capital punishment is repellent to public feeling in Russia, and has been used in cases which, thank God! were quite exceptional and extremely rare. With us, only the very worst crimes are punished with imprisonment for life. Even for these it may at all events be said, 'While there is life there is hope.'

"Very great improvements have been introduced in our prison system. More are to follow. We see our shortcomings better than ignorant dilettante critics, whose only object is to excite artificial indignation.

"These questions are very important and complicated; but, as Thiers used to say, 'Prenez tout au sérieux, rien au tragique.'"

It is difficult to write of Russian prisons without reference to the work of my great friend, Helen Voronoff. It has been said, and nothing could be truer, that her whole existence might have been summed up in the three words, "all for others." She killed herself by her devotion to her self-imposed duty as an angel of light in the gloomy recesses of Russian prisons.

MISS HELEN VORONOFF
MISS HELEN VORONOFF

The first years of her life were devoted to teaching, but in 1906 she turned her attention to another {227} sphere of activity that had long attracted her, and which turned out to be her life's mission: the bringing of comfort and hope and spiritual light into the lives of criminals in prisons, more especially of political offenders. In spite of her weak health, and of the fact that she had already in her early youth been condemned to death by her doctors, she exhibited the most extraordinary physical and moral energy, and looked upon all fatigue in connection with her work simply as an unavoidable and unimportant detail in the carrying out of her divine mission.

She never hesitated before those excessively tiring and depressing journeys to the Schlüsselbourg Fortress, and other prisons, before wanderings through cold dark cells, and keeping long vigils at the bedsides of the dying. Her influence among the prisoners was so beneficent, that the authorities, in all cases, allowed her to come and go as she pleased, and to visit even the most dangerous criminals in their solitary confinement cells.

On one particular occasion that comes to my mind, two gaolers seriously opposed themselves to her entering a certain cell alone, since the prisoner confined there was a ruffian who literally boasted of having killed twelve persons, and whom it seemed most dangerous for an unprotected woman to approach. Miss Voronoff would not even listen to the gaolers.

"I must go to him quite alone," she insisted. "Your presence would show mistrust on my part and would only wound his feelings."

On her entry, the criminal looked up in surprise. {228} "Why have you come here alone?" he growled. "I have killed twelve people. Are you not afraid that I shall kill you too?"

"There is no reason why you should do that," was the quiet reply. "I have only come because I should like to help you a little. Your past sins can make no difference."

The prisoner seemed taken aback, and gradually allowed himself to be drawn into a conversation that lasted more than half an hour, after which, when his visitor rose to go, this rough outcast, touched and softened, begged her to come again.

Between her visits to the various prisons, Miss Voronoff spent all her time in correspondence and interviews with the relatives of the prisoners, and in untiring efforts to alleviate their sufferings and soften their fate. Many indeed are the bright moments that this consoling angel brought into the darkness of those hopeless lives!

Miss Voronoff left behind her (she died only recently) an interesting book of sketches entitled Among the Prisoners. Never was a book published more worthy of being described as a human document. It is full of the charm and goodness of one saintly personality reacting upon the victims of a great tragedy. The following quotations that I have made from this book are so illuminating as to Russian character that they require no apology or explanation:—

"It was not until after a lapse of six years that I was once more able to visit the Wiborg Cellular Prison, in the consumptive ward of which I first began to work for poor prisoners. Then I was in {229} the company of Princess Maria Dondoukoff-Korsakoff. Now, this noble woman has gone to her reward, but everything around seemed to speak to me of her. There was not a bed in that ward upon which she had not sat (she seldom, if ever, used the chairs provided, feeling that in this way she was nearer to the patient). And many a sufferer had she comforted. Laying her hand upon his shoulder or his head, she would speak words which, delivered in her sweet and affable voice, could not fail to reach his heart. Ah! how many a heart was softened, how much physical pain relieved, how many souls gained back to God by her sweet ministrations!

"And now, with these dear memories crowding upon me, I visited once again the Wiborg Cellular Prison.

"It has been much improved; now there are two wards for consumptive patients, whereas formerly there was but one, which was both overcrowded and airless. In fact, the place, I remember, on one occasion was so close as to overcome the Princess, who was obliged to lie down and recover before continuing her ministrations to the sick.

"Upon the occasion of this my first visit to the prison after six years, a touching incident occurred, which I should like to recall.

"Upon entering the ward I saw at once that there were three there who would not be long upon this earth, for they remained motionless as I advanced. But the others brightened up at my coming, trying to check their troublesome coughs, and even, where strong enough, raising themselves to greet me.

"During my conversation with them I asked if {230} those so near their end had received Holy Communion. Upon this point I was reassured, and was much comforted to see how anxious were those not yet about to die that their fellow-sufferers should receive this consolation when the end approached.

"I noticed as I passed along the ward a specially young and handsome face, the face of one of the three about to breathe their last. I drew closer, and silently watched him for a few moments, fearing to rouse him, for his eyes were closed, and his breath was short and interrupted. Bright red spots burnt upon his cheeks.

"As I stood thus his neighbour called him, and, looking above his bed, I read the name, 'Paul Rostchin.'

"'Why do you disturb him?' I asked. The man explained that Rostchin expected me, and wished to ask me something, and that when he regained consciousness he would be very sad that he had not been roused to speak to me.

"'After some time, Rostchin opened his eyes. I shall never forget their expression. It was a mingling of pain and hope and entreaty. He tried hard to speak, but, although his lips moved, I could hear no sound.

"Gently I tried to soothe him, begging him to be calm, and telling him that I was in no hurry, and would wait until I understood what it was he wished to say to me.

"At last I caught one word, 'Mother.' 'Ah!' said I, 'you are calling your mother; you want to see her; perhaps I could find her. Where does she live?'

{231}

"'She is far from here,' he whispered, 'and cannot come.'

"My heart ached for him. It was pitiful to hear him in these his last moments calling for his mother. I bent over him and said:

"'Your own mother, as you say, is far from here; but God has sent me to comfort you. Can you not count me your spiritual mother, and confide in me, when I come to you and sit with you and listen to all you have to say?'

"His face brightened at the thought, and a little strength seemed to return. 'I have something,' he said, 'to tell her before I die.'

"Then I begged him to say to me what he wished to say to her, promising that I would hear it as though I were his mother. Hardly had I said this than the man on the bed at our right, being able to walk, got up and moved away, and the other, who was not equal to that effort, turned his back to us, that he might not hear. I was touched at the feeling displayed by these apparently rough, though simple Russian men.

"And then I made out from his laboured words his sad story. A good, kind, and loving mother abandoned for more than a year and a half, while he suffered in prison. His great wish now was to let her know how much he felt his guilt, and beg for her forgiveness.

"I listened, holding my breath that I might catch the halting words, and as he bared his soul, and made clear the confession he wished to make, it seemed as though a great weight fell from him; and when, from sheer exhaustion, he sank back and closed his {232} eyes, I knew that the tears were there, as he said brokenly, 'I shall never see her again to tell her this. I have only a few days, perhaps a week, left to live.'

"I never hold out vain hopes to the poor patients when they are about to die, so, seeing how near he was to his end, I did not undeceive him.

"Again I asked him for his mother's address, promising to write and tell her that he was dying, and asked forgiveness, and that I would ask her to reply immediately, so that he might hear the answer before the end. The face of the dying man shone with a great joy; the forgiveness of his mother was all he sought now upon the earth. Then, sinking back upon his bed, he murmured, 'If I get the answer, I shall take it with me.'

"Before leaving the hospital I made the sign of the Cross upon his forehead. His eyes were closed, but he whispered, 'Thanks, thanks.'

"Meeting the doctor on my way out, I inquired whether he thought it was worth while to suggest that the mother should come, or could he last so long. The doctor seemed unable to decide, saying he might live a week or he might die that day.

"Hurrying home, I despatched the promised letter, and for days awaited the answer. Each day I telephoned to the prison for news of the dying man, and each time I received the same reply, 'He is alive, but very weak.' And this for five days.

"On the sixth day, when I came home in the afternoon, my servant met me with the information that a very old woman, poorly dressed, in bast shoes and {233} a wallet on her back, had been there asking for her son Paul.

"Rostchin's mother, upon the receipt of my letter, had determined to come in person to pardon her son. As the journey cost five roubles twenty copecks, she sold all her possessions, pledging even her felt shoes, thus being forced to travel in bast shoes, in spite of the intense cold. It was her first visit to a large town; she was bewildered by all she saw; but her mother's love helped her to surmount all obstacles.

"The next morning, very early, I went to her. In her anxiety to get to her son, she came to the tram with one golosh only over her bast shoe; the other she had forgotten. It was not until we were on the way that I broke the sad tidings to her that the hospital to which we were going was the hospital of a prison. 'Oh! Paul, Paul, my beloved son. My darling! How did you get to prison?' she sobbed. 'He was a warrant officer, and now he is in prison.'

"To me it was most touching that she did not once reproach him. She only pitied him without end. She warmly thanked me that I had not mentioned in my letter that he was in prison.

"'Oh, God! Oh, Holy Virgin Mary! Let me find him alive; let me but hear one word from him; let him look on me only one moment,' prayed the old woman.

"We found, on our arrival at the prison, that Rostchin yet lived, but to give an adequate description of the meeting between mother and son I feel is beyond me.

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"When I led the poor woman into the room where Rostchin lay, and showed her the bed on which he was stretched, she staggered, and would have fallen had I not supported her. But her eyes fell on the picture of a saint, and, making the sign of the Cross, she approached the bedside of her son. He was so weak that he could not even turn his head, but tears rolled down his cheeks, and the poor mother, bending over him, gazed so earnestly into his eyes that her tears fell and flowed with his.

"'Forgive me, forgive me, my own mother. I am very guilty,' repeated the dying man.

"'My son, my dear son Paul, God will forgive you,' wept the sorrowing woman.

"I could stand the scene no longer, and I withdrew. When later I returned, some of the sick prisoners came up and thanked me for the great joy I had given to Rostchin.

"Once more was I thrilled to find such feelings in these poor prisoners, themselves suffering and outcast, yet rejoicing with their fellow-sufferer. It is easy to weep with those who weep, but when one's own heart is sad and suffering, is it so easy to rejoice with those that rejoice? Envy so easily creeps in.

"Rostchin did not live long after the visit of his mother. Having received her pardon, he became calmer, asked for the clergyman, and once more received the Holy Sacrament. His death was that of a good Christian. His sufferings were great, but he remained still in the same peaceful disposition. Before he breathed his last, he repeated again and again, 'Forgive, forgive!'

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"It is interesting to note that his mother did not remain until the end, but, having pardoned and blessed her son, asked to be sent back to her home.

"This is characteristically Russian. Having satisfied herself that his soul was prepared to meet his God, she was less anxious about the dying body, asking only to be informed when God had called him away.

"I let her know when all was over, and in reply received a simple and touching letter, in which she begged me to 'go to his grave, take from it a handful of earth, and send it to me.'

"What treasures lie hidden in the faithful soul of the simple Russian!"