asylums for the insane, and all the existing institutions of that kind in European Russia are full.[1]
It is a fact worthy, perhaps, of remark that the life of the political convicts at Kará, which Governor-general Anúchin describes as "unbearable," was made unbearable by the direct and deliberate action of the Government itself. Anúchin caused to be erected in front of the prison windows the high stockade that hid from the prisoners the whole outside world and turned their place of confinement into a huge coverless box; while the Minister of the Interior, apparently without the least provocation, abolished the free command, and ordered the "complete isolation" which resulted in the suicide and insanity that the governor-general seems to deplore. The condition of the state criminals was not "unbearable" under the administration of Colonel Kononóvich. It became unbearable as a consequence of the orders that forced the latter's resignation.
It was hardly to be expected that young and energetic men would quietly submit to a state of things that was officially recognized as " unbearable," and that was gradually driving the weaker among them to suicide or insanity. In April, 1882, less than a year after Colonel Kononóvich's resignation, and less than a month after the delivery of Governor-general Anúchin's report to the Tsar, a few of the boldest and bravest of the state criminals at Kará made an attempt to escape by digging a tunnel under the prison wall. The excavation, which was made under the floor in one of the kámeras, was not discovered; but owing to the marshy nature of the ground upon which the building stood, the hole quickly filled with water, and work in it was abandoned. It then occurred to some of the prisoners that they might
- ↑ Report of Governor-general Anúchin to Alexander III., Chapter V., Section 3, under the heading of "Exile Penal Servitude and the Prison Department." (See Appendix H.)
political prisoners, who dread insanity more than anything else, it is, of course, terribly depressing to have constantly before them, in the form of a wrecked intelligence, an illustration of the possible end of their own existence.
