Note 1 — Chapter XXXI · SIBERIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS.

Let me not fail to add, however, that the whole tone of Dostoyeffsky’s book is far above that of the vindictive class of writers, some of whom have been alluded to. It gives an inner view of prison life, such as no inspector, or philanthropist, or person visiting prisons as I did, could furnish. Some of this writer’s statements, indeed, would hardly tally with my own experience, as, for instance, that they had the bath seldom, whereas I found it the rule once a fortnight, and at Tiumen and Tomsk once a week; above all, the statement that prisoners were thrashed if found sleeping on their backs, or the left side instead of the right; also what he says of thrashing generally, to which I shall allude hereafter. But I have to thank Alexander Goryantchikoff for his lifelike pictures, many of which illustrate scraps of information I received concerning the Siberian prison world—such, for instance, as the various occupations carried on in secret among the convicts, one being a pawnbroker, another a vodka seller, others smugglers of spirits into the prison, the card-playing at night, the exchanging of their names and punishments, and the horrible language and fighting and quarrelling of the prisoners. In these things I make no doubt that “Buried Alive” gives a fairly accurate picture of things as they were, and in some cases still are, perhaps, among such prisoners as those with whom the lot of Goryantchikoff (himself a murderer) was cast. Further light also is thrown upon the interior of prison life in Siberia by the papers of M. Andreoli in La Revue Moderne for 1868, in which he speaks of the tricks and vices of both prisoners and officials, and of the evil effects of the gang system. A great deal of this is inevitable where a number of the most desperate felons are herded together.