On Sakhalin these tables were proposed for consideration by a commission appointed under the chairmanship of the director of the medical department. The Sakhalin physicians who partici- pated in the commission proved to be at the height of their calling. Without equivocation they asserted that in light of the working conditions on Sakhalin, the severe climate and the intense physical exertion during all seasons of the year and in all types of weather, the present rations were insufficient and that the provi- sions proposed by Professor Dobroslavin's tables, notwithstanding the rcduction in meat portions, would be far morc expensive than those now being issued according to the existing tables.
Answering the main point of the problem with regard to decreasing the cost of the rations, they proposed their own tables, which failed to bring about the savings demanded by the prison administration. "There will be no material savings," they wrote. "Rather thcre can be expectations of improvement in thc quantity and quality of prison labor, a decrease in the number of the sick and infirm; the general health of the prisoners will be improvcd, and this will reflect favorably on the colonization of Sakhalin by providing vigorous and healthy settlers to achieve this goal." This "Statement from the Office of the Commandant of Sakhalin Island" refers to changes in the tables brought about in order to decrease costs, and contains twenty different reports, ratios and laws. It deserves close study by persons interested in prison hygiene.
Smoked keta is sold in stores at 30 kopecks each.
As I have already said, the local natives use a great deal of fat in their food, which undoubtedly aids them in combating the low tcmperatures and the excessive humidity. I was told that in some places along the eastern shore and on our neighboring islands the Russian traders are slowly beginning to use whale blubber in their diet.
'2 When Captain Mashinsky was cutting a road along the Poro- naya for thc telegraph line, his convict laborers were sent short shirts which could only fit children. The prison clothing is made according to a routine, clumsy pattern which does not permit ease of movement by a working man and therefore you will never see a convict wearing his long overcoat or khalat when shipping cargo or doing roadwork. However, discomforts arising from the cut of the clothing are easily remedied by selling or exchanging it. Since the most comfortable clothing for work and life in general is the usual peasant garb, the majoricy of the exiles wear the same cloth- ing as free men.
!3 Since the Kurile lslands went to Japan, the Bishop should now properly be called Bishop of Sakhalin.
h Regarding the blessing of the Krilon lighthouse by Bishop Martimian, see Vladivostok ( 1883), No. 28.
115 The tone of his letters is very original. Requesting the admin- istration to provide him with a convict assistant to act as a lay reader, he wrote: ''As to the reason why I do not have a reader, this is explained by the fact that the Consistory has no trained readers and even if there was one, a psalmist would be unable to exist under the living conditions of the local clergy. The past has come to an end. lt seems that I will soon have to depart from Korsakov into my beautiful wilderness, saying unto you: 'I am leaving your house empty.' "
There is another church in the Rykovskoye region, located in Malo-Tymovo, where a service is held only on the feast day of Anthony the Great. In the Korsakov region there arc three chapels: in Vladimirovka, Krcsty and Galkino-Vraskoye. All the Sakhalin churches and chapels were built by convict labor on prison time. Only the Korsakov church was built by funds donated by the Vsadntk and Vostok commands and by the military living at the post.
Professor Vladimirov says in his Textbook on Criminal that when a convict joins the ranks of the reformed, a ceremony takes place. He probably had Article 301 of the Code on Convicts in mind. According to this article the convict is to be informed of his transfer to the designated category in the presence of higher prison officials and the invited priest, who . . . etc. In practice, however, this article is impracticable, because the priest would have to be invited daily, and such ceremonies do not coincide with working conditions. The law which permits prisoners to be excused from work on holy days is also disregarded. According to this law, convicts in the reformed category should be excused more frequently than those on probation. Differentiation of this kind would require a great deal of time and trouble.
The only usual activity of the local priests is connected with their missionary obligations. While I was on the island, the priest- monk Irakly was still living there. A Buriat by birth, clean-shaven, he had come from the Posolsky Monastery in Zabaikal. He has spent eight years on Sakhalin and in recent years he was the pas- tor of the Rykovskoye parish. His missionary duties obliged him to travel to Nyisky Bay once or rwice a year and along the Poro- naya to baptize, hold services and preside at the marriages of natives. He instructed some of the 300 Orochi tribesmen. He could scarcely expect any comforts in his travels over the taiga, especially in winter. At night Father Irakly customarily crawled into a sheepskin sleeping bag with his watch and tobacco. His traveling companions built a fire two or three times a night and warmed themselves with hot tea while he slept in his sleeping bag.
According to the records, the Orthodox comprise 86.5 percent, Catholics and Lutherans combined 9 percent, Muhammadans 2.7 percent, the remainder being Hebrews and Armenians of the Gregorian [Latin] rite. A Catholic priest comes once a year from Vladivostok and then the Catholic convicts are "herded" down from the northern districts to Alexandrovsk, and this occurs during the spring season when the roads are terrible. The Catholics com- plained to me that their priest comes very seldom. Their children remain unbaptized for a long time, and many parents turn to the Orthodox priest so that their children may not die unbaptized. I actually encountered Orthodox children whose fathers and mothers werc Catholics. When Catholics die, because they have no priest of thc-ir own, they invite a Russian priest to sing the '"Holy God, have mcrcy upon us."
In Alexandrovsk I was visited by a Lutheran who was sentenced in St. Petersburg for arson. He said that the Lutherans on Sakhalin have a society and as proof showed me a seal on which there had becn carved: "The Seal of the Lutheran Society on Sakhalin." The Lutherans gather at his home for prayers and for exchanging ideas.
The Tatars choose a mullah from among themselves, the Hebrews choose a rabbi, but they do this unofficially. A mosque is being built in Alexandrovsk. Mullah Vas-Khasan-Mamet, a handsome dark-haired man of thirty-eight who was born in Dage- stan, is erecting it at his own expense. In the Peysikovskaya Slo- bodka in Alexandrovsk there is a windmill which is utterly neglected. They say a Tatar and his wife chopped down the trees themselves, dragged the logs to the site and made the boards. Nobody helped them and they continued to work for three years. On obtaining peasant status the Tatar moved to the mainland, donating the mill to the government rather than to his own Tatars, because he was angry at them for not having selected him as mullah.
After fulfilling the island commandant's order to seek settlers or reliable persons of free status who could be substituted for the convicts presently carrying out the obligations of teachers in the village schools, the commandant of the Alexandrovsk district states in his report of February 22, 1890, that in the district under his jurisdiction there is nobody either among the free people or among the settlers who could qualify as a teacher. He writes: "Since I have encountered insurmountable difficulties in selecting people who by education would be eligible to some extent for teaching, I do not presume to designate anybody from among the settlers or ^^ants-formerly-exiles living under my jurisdiction who could be entrusted with teaching duties." Although the honorable com- mandant of the district does not presume to entrust teaching duties to convicts, they still continue as teachers with his knowledge and by his appointment. To avoid similar contradictions it would seem that the simplest solution would be to invite qualified teachers from Russia or Siberia and to specify the same salary as that received by jailers. This would require a radical change of attitude to teaching, making it at least as important as guard duty.