File:Side-lights on Siberia (1898), page 152, A settlement of voluntary followers, Eastern Siberia.jpg

Identifier: sidelightsonsibe00simp (find matches)
Title: Side-lights on Siberia; some account of the great Siberian railroad, the prisons and exile system;
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Simpson, James Young, 1873-1934
Subjects: Prisons -- Soviet Union Exiles -- Russia (Federation) Siberia Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel
Publisher: Edinburgh and London : W. Blackwood and Sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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shorn on the left. And after eachman had undergone the operation he retired slowly to hislog barrack, feeling the back of his head with his handand shaking it to displace loose hairs, while his chains madea merry jingle and the bystanders jeered. As the head can always be covered with a cap, and it ispossible to break the fetters with a smart blow, these indig-nities are obviously no deterrents to escape, and indeed formno actual punishment. All that they do is to brand a manas a criminal so long as he is within the prison walls, andthis is unnecessary: once he has escaped, they becomefunctionless. And that this is probably an approximationto the truth is borne out by the fact that in certain prisonsthe men are neither left in chains nor are their heads shaved.On the march it might be useful to distinguish the convictfrom the exiled settler, and one might think that a fetteredconvict would have a poor chance of running away; butafter all it is the prisons and the guards who are mainly
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A CONVICT-BARGE. 155 instrumental in preventing this, and even they are onlypartially successful, Vis-d-vis to the Peresilni Prison, on the other side of anill-defined road, are the womens prison, and apartments to-accommodate the dohrovolni or voluntaries (mainly womenand children) who accompany relatives in the gang. Butwhat was most pleasant to behold was the candid acknow-ledgment of the antiquated condition of the prison as evincedin the construction of a series of new buildings in closeproximity to the present womens prison. When transpor-tation of convicts by rail comes into vogue, Tinmen willnaturally decline in importance, and will become simply thelocal prison of the district — I.e., its forwarding aspectwill disappear. With this in view, the first new buildingin process of erection at that time was a hospital whichmight excite the envy of any small town, far less a prison,fitted out as it was with the very latest ventilative andhygienic appliances; but the wards were of n

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