In Russian and French Prisons | Page 2

by an admirer of
the Russian Government. I did so in a paper on the Russian
Revolutionary Party, which appeared in the Fortnightly Review, June,
1831. None of the facts revealed in this paper have been contradicted
by the Russian agents. Attempts were, however, made to circulate in
the English press accounts of Russian prisons, representing them under
a somewhat smiling aspect. I was thus compelled to give a general
description of prisons and exile in Russia and Siberia, and did so in a
series of four papers, which appeared in the Nineteenth Century.
Refraining as much as possible from complaints of the treatment
undergone by our political friends in Russia, I preferred to give an idea
of the general state of Russian prisons, of exile to Siberia, and of its
results; and told the unutterable sufferings which scores of thousands of
common-law prisoners are enduring in the jails throughout Russia, on
their way to Siberia, and in the immense penal colony of the Russian
Empire. In order to complete my own experience, which might have
been out of date, I consulted the bulky Russian literature which has
been devoted of late to the subject. The perusal of this literature
convinced me that things have remained in very nearly the same state
as they were five-and-twenty years ago; but I also learned from it that
although the Russian prison authorities are very anxious to have
mouthpieces in West Europe, in order to circulate embellished accounts
of their humane endeavours, they do not conceal the truth either from
the Russian Government or from the Russian reading public, and both
in official reports and in the Press they represent the prisons as being in
the most execrable condition. Some of these avowals will be found in
the following pages.

Later on, that is, in 1882 to 1886, I spent three years in French prisons;
namely, in the Prison DŽpartementale of Lyons, and the Maison
Centrale of Clairvaux. The description of both has been given in a
paper contributed last year to the Nineteenth Century. My sojourn of
nearly three years at Clairvaux, in close neighbourhood with fourteen
hundred common-law prisoners, has given me an opportunity of
obtaining a personal insight into the results achieved by detention in
this prison, one of the best in France, and, as far as my information
goes in Europe. It induced me to treat the question as to the moral
effects of prisons on prisoners from a more general point of view, in
connection with modern views on crime and its causes. A portion of
this inquiry formed the subject of an address delivered in December last,
before the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution.
While thus reprinting some review articles, I have completed them with
more recent information and data, mostly taken from official Russian
publications; and whilst eliminating from them the controversial
element, I have also eliminated all that cannot be supported by
documents which can be published now without causing harm to
anybody of our friends in Russia. The newly-added chapter on exile to
Sakhalin will complete the description of the Russian penal institutions.
I take advantage of this opportunity to express my best thanks to the
editor of the Nineteenth Century for his kind permission to reprint the
articles published in his review.
CHAPTER I
MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH RUSSIAN PRISONS
My first acquaintance with Russian prisons was made in Siberia. It was
in 1862. I had then just arrived at Irkutsk--a young Lieutenant of
Cossacks, not fully twenty years of age,--and a couple of months after
my arrival I was appointed secretary to a committee for the reform of
prisons. A few words of explanation are necessary, I suppose, for my
English readers.
The education I had received was only what a military school could

give. Much of our time had been devoted, of course, to mathematics
and physical sciences; still more to the science of warfare, to the art of
destroying men on battle-fields. But we were living, then, in Russia at
the time of the great revival of thought which followed in our country
the Crimean defeat; and even the education in military schools felt the
influence of this great movement. Something superior to more
militarism penetrated even the walls of the Corps des Pages.
The Press had received some freedom of expression since 1859, and it
was eagerly discussing the political and economic reforms which had to
shake off the sad results of twenty-five years of military rule under
Nicholas I. ; and echoes of the intense intellectual activity which was
agitating the outer world reached our class-room. Some of, us were
reading a good deal to complete our education. We took a warm
interest in the proposed rebuilding of our institutions, and lively
discussions on the emancipation of Serfs, on the reforms in