The convicts throw bags of flour into the water and probably retrieve them from the bottom at night. An assistant officer on one of the ships told me: "You turn your back and find the place strippcd. Whcn they are unloading barrcls of salted fish, they all try to stuff fish into their pockets, their shirts, their pants. . . . When we find them, we go to work on them! We take the fish by thc tail and then smack them over thc mouth, and we keep on smacking them. . . ."
The police administration, however, gave me a list that con- tained the names of only thirty prostitutes. They are examined weekly by the physician.
r> There were 17 1 convicts on trial and under investigation in 1889 for attempting to escape. The case of a certain Kolosovsky was begun in July of 1886 and remained at a standstill because thc witnesses did not appear for interrogation. Some cases con- ccrning prison escapes were started in September, 1883, and were given by the public prosecutor for disposition at the Primorskaya Regional Court in July, 1889. The case of Lesnikov was begun in March, 1885, and was concluded in February, 1889, etc. The largest number of cases in 1889 involved escapes—70 percent. After this came murder and implication in murder—14 percent. If cases involving escape were omitted, half the total would be connected with murder, which is probably the most frequent crime committed on Sakhalin. Half the convicts have been sentenced for murder, and the local murderers commit murder with singular ease. When I was in Rykovskoye one convict slit another con- vict's throat with a knife while working the government garden. He explained that he murdered the man because he would not have to work, since persons under investigation sit in their cells and do nothing. In Goly Mys the young carpenter Plaksin killed his friend for a few silver coins. In 1885 escaping convicts attacked an Ainu village and then, for no better reason than that their own strong passions were aroused, they tortured the men and women, then raped the women, and hanged the children on the crossbeams. Most murders are shocking in their senselessness and brutality. Murder cases are extremely prolonged. Thus, one case begun in September, 1881, was completed only in April, 1888. Another case was begun in April, 1882, and completed in August, 1889. The trial of the murderers of the Ainu families has still not been completed. "The case of the Ainu murders was decided by the military field court and eleven of the accused convicts were sen- tenced to death. The verdict of the military field court with respect to the remaining five prisoners of the police department is not known. Prescntations of documents were made in reports to the island commandant dated June 1 3 and October 23, 1889."
Cases on "changing given names and surnames" are especially prolonged. One case was begun in March, 1880, and is still con- tinuing, because information has not yet been received from the Yakutsk Regional Government. Another case was begun in 1881, a third in 1882. Eight convicts are on trial and under investigation "for forging and selling counterfeit banknotes." They say that counterfeit money is printed on Sakhalin itself. \Vhen prisoners unload cargo from foreign ships, they buy tobacco and vodka from the barmen and usually pay with counterfeit bills. The Jew from whom 56,000 rubles were stolen on Sakhalin was sent here for counterfeiting money. He has completed his sentence and wanders around Alexandrovsk in a hat, a coat and a gold chain. He always speaks sotto voce or in a whisper to officials and guards. This disgusting fellow denounced a peasant with a large family, who was also a Jew, and the peasant was arrested and put in chains. He had previously been sentenced to an undetermined term by a military court "for sedition," but on his way across Siberia the term was reduced to four years. This was done by forging official records. A case "involving stealing from the armory of the Korsakov Local Command Post" is also described in "Infor- mation Concerning Men Being Investigated and Placed on Trial During the Year 1889." The case of the accused has been drag- ging on since 1884 but "there is no information on the beginning and conclusion of the investigation in the reports of the former commander of the Southern Sakhalin district and ir is unknown when the case was brought to trial." By order of the island com- mandant the case was referred to the district court in 1889. And it seems that the accused will be tried for a second time.
According to the Code on Convicts the administration is not bound by the regulations contained in the of Legal. Procedure when. arresting a convict. A convict can be arrested at any time when suspected of a crime (Article 484).
In former days case histories sometimes secretly vanished or cases were dismissed '"for a mysterious reason" (see Kladivostok [1885]. No. 43). They even stole one case history which had been ruled upon by a field court. In his report Mr. Vlasov men- tions Ayzik Shapiro, a convict sentenced to an unlimited term of imprisonment. This convict lived in Due and dealt in vodka. In 1870 he was accused of seducing a five-year.old girl, but the affair was hushed up despite the existence of the corpus delicti. The in- vestigation of this case was conducted by an officer of the post command who had pawned his rifle to Shapiro and owed him money. When the case was taken away from the officer, no docu- ments accusing Shapiro were found. The latter enjoyed great re- spect in Due. \X'hen the post commander asked one day where Shapiro was, they replied, "'They've gone off to drink tea," using the honorific "they" to describe him.
In the Andreye-lvanovskoye settlement a pig was stolen at night from C. Suspicion fell on Z., whose trousers were stained with pig excrement. They searched his homestead, but did not find the pig. Nevertheless, the village commune passed a verdict to confiscate a pig belonging to his tenant A., who could have been an accessory in concealing the pig. The district commander sanctioned this verdict, although he felt it was unjust. He told me, "If we do not sanction the verdicts of the village, Sakhalin will simply have no courts of justice."
The mark on the back of the convict's coat, the shaving of half of the head, and the fetters once used to prevent escape and to facilitate the recognition of convicts have lost their former sig- nificance, and are now retained only as minor punitive measures. The mark, a four-cornered diamond about two vershoks square, is required by the Code to be of a different color from the cloth of the prisoner's coat. Until recently it was yellow, but since this is the color of the Amur and Zabaikal Cossacks, Baron Korf ordered it to be made of black cloth. On Sakhalin these marks have long since lost their significance: the people have grown accustomed to them and are not even aware of them. The same can be said of shaved heads. On Sakhalin heads are rarely shaved, with the ex- ception of those who have been returned to prison after attempting escape, those under investigation and those chained to an iron ball, while in the Korsakov district the practice has been abandoned. According to the Code concerning those under arrest, the weight of the fetters must be between five and fi.ve and a half pounds. The only woman in chains in my time was one who was given the name of "The Golden Hand": her hands were in irons. Irons are mandatory for those on probation, but the Code permits them to be removed if it is necessary for the performance of work, and since chains are a hindrance in nearly every kind of work, most of the convicts have been freed of them. Today large numbers of convicts with unlimited sentences arc not chained, although the Code demands that they be chained hand and foot. No matter how light the irons, they still hamper movement to a certain degree. Some prisoners grow accustomed to them, many others do not. I had occasion to sec older prisoners who covered their chains with their khalat skirts when they saw visitors. I have a photograph which shows a crowd of Due and Voyevodsk convicts in a work detachment, most of them attempting to stand in such a way that their irons would not be visible in the photograph. Obviously, as an ignominious punishment, these irons often achieve their aim, but the feeling of degradation which they evoke in a criminal has scarcely anything in common with the feeling of shame.