Chains For Russian Prisoners

A point on which false information has been spread relates to the marmer prisoners wear their chains, whioh some, like the author of "Called Back," would have us believe is under their trousers. But this is purely a hoax. I have in my possession pairs of Russian handcufïs and leg chains, and a prison suit which I obtained lu Siberia, where also I saw scores, uot to Bay hundreds, of leg chains. The last consist each of two rings, to be riveted around the anides, and attached by a chain thirty inches long, which, for convenience in walking, is suspended in the middle by a strip of leather from the waist. Between the rings and the prisoner's skin there is worn first a coarse woolen stocking and over that a piece of thick Unen cloth, then come the trousers, over which is bound round tbe shin a leather gaiter. How, then, could these chains be worn under the trousers 1 The chains iu my possession weigh five and a quarter pounds, the handcuffs two; but of these latter I should observe that in going across Siberia and through its prisons Isaw only one man manacled, and he a desperado, who, to the crime for which he was iudered. added that of murder in