File:Side-lights on Siberia (1898), page 157, In the cage.jpg

Identifier: sidelightsonsibe00simp 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

View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book

Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image: n one sideof the corridor, the single cabin in which the six-and-twentysoldiers have to stow themselves away. Inside there wasbarely sufficient space for two men to pass one another, whileall round was a most economical system of narrow bunks.This is only one of several facts which show that the lotof the guard is not so very much better than that of hischarge, with the exception of the immense difference betweenthem as warder and ward. And as the former are on thewhole a steady uncomplaining force, one should listen withless sympathy to the murraurings of the prisoners. Acrossthe corridor were the apartments of the natchcdnik and his THE CAGE. 15 wife and family ; together with a few smaller cabins, one ofwhich was occupied by the doctor, another used as kontora,and the remainder reserved for special politicals. Thefore-cage is supposed to contain some 250 human beingswhat time they are allowed to come up on deck to breathefresh air. Eight stout vertical iron posts connected the main

Text Appearing After Image: In the case. and upper decks, and between these a thick wire-netting,with hexagonal meshes of about 1^ inch in diameter, wasstretched. In bad weather with driving rain a tarpaulin iscarried round the inside of this wire fence, so that theprisoners can come up on deck for exercise and air with-out being drenched. The breadth of the cage was perhaps 158 ON THE MARCH. 24 feet, which would leave about 3 feet for each of the side-passages already mentioned. The caboose separated the fore-cage from the hinder one, which is almost twice its size.The netting was led round three sides, so that the caboosewas shut out, and food is handed through holes in the caging.The kitchen itself, which might be 16 feet in length, had not,however, a breadth equal to that of the cage: the space thussaved formed the head of the companion that led to thesleeping (quarters below. The hinder cage was some 70 feet in length, and alsohad its staircase down to the Inferno: it was for men, asthe other was for women.

Note About Images