The Russian Prisoner

Prince Krapotkinin tlieNinteenthCentiiry. Tho man is not beaten; he is not knocked down. No, we are civilized people, and the punished man is merely brought tothecellular quarter, and locked up in a cell. The cell is j quite empty; it has neither bed nor bench. For thenight ft mattress is given, and theprisoner must lay his dress outside the eell, at the door. Bread and water are his food. As soon as the bell rings in the morninp; he is taken to a email covered yard, and there he must - walk. Nothing more; but our refineri civilization has leamed how to make a torture even of this natural exercise. At a formal slow pace, under the cries of un, deux, the patients must walk all the day long around the building. They walk for twenty minutes; then a rest follows. For ten minutes they must sit down immovable, each of them on his numbered stone, and walk again for twenty minutes; and so on through all the day, as long as the enginea of the workshops are running. And the punishment does not last one day or two; it lasts for whole months. It is so cruel that the prisoner implores but oue thing: "Let me return to the workshops." "Well, we ehall see that in a fortnight or two," is the usual answer. But the fortnight goes over, and the noxt one too, and the patiënt still continúes to walk twelve hours every day. Then he revolts. He begins to cry in his cell, to insult the warders. Then he becomes "a rebel" - a dreadful qualification for any onewho is in the hands ot the brotherhood of warders - and as such he will rot in the cells, and walk throughout his life. IL he issaults a warder, he will not b sent to New-Caledonia; he will still remain in his cell, and ever walk in the small building. One man a poasant, seeing no issue from this horrible situation, preferred to poison himself rather than live such a life - a terrible story which Ishallsome day teil in full.