Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, February 25, 1923, Page 24

CHEKA BURIED VICTIMS BY HUNDREDS IN RAVINE; BEATS SOCIALISTS IN JAIL Women Crazed by Torture, Some Killing Themselves to Escape Horrors of the Red Inquisition --- Last September and October.the Socialists in the Yaroslav Prison Were Brutally Beaten by Cheka. Continued from last Sunday. The most numerous, intimidated and puzzling group of prisoners was made up of the thousands and tens of thou- sans of citizens who used to find them- selves in prison, ubsolu innocent. for month after month and sometimes f them were arrested scade or by proscription lists, casual denunciations, “provo’ tours” or without any apparent c at all, Some of them even had to stand up against the “wall,” continu- ing to wonder why they had been ar- rested and why they were being stripped naked and shot. ‘Every two to three months the Cheka discovers new conspiracies, arrests the ostens!. ble plotters right and left, leaving ambuscades in their homes for thre five and even ten days, and drives to the Butyrki entire herds of people of every rank, and condition. Innocent Sent to Prison, And Don't Know Why" As for the s which arres were being ma may be easily imagined if onc ur in mind that ambuseades would be stationed for weeks at a time even in offices and res, arresting all clients and cus- ers. So, for instance, the arrests at Dazziaro’s (the largest art store in Moscow) netted pout 600 persons, and from the publication oflice of the Diclo Naroda more than 100 were taken to prison. During the arrests of tho Constitutional Democrats in Juno and August of that year about 300 prison- ers were sent to the Butyrkl. Entire schools, beginning with the teachers and ending with the watchmen, were being arrested as the school of mili- tary camouflage, the artillery school; and entire army sta down to the last clerk. Ofcourse, careful house searches were made at the homes of all these hundreds and thousands of people, ything that had any value at all would be confiscated and dis- appear without a trace, and the am- Duseade forces «would devour all sup- plies, If we will take into consideration this method of self-supply for the Cheka agents, the entire system of wholesale searches, arrests, raids and ambuscades will become plain. And the “agents provocateurs,” too, had picked out quite a fertile source of revenue, with the sanction of the higher authorities; for every dis- covered case of speculation the in- vestigator recelved 5 per cent. of the amount involved in the deal. One may imagine what a broad field was opened up before these adventurers after a number of decrees had been passed prohibiting all trade and even barter. Frequently, however, such provoca- tive affairs end tragically. Here {s an instance. From Kharkov, at the time of its occupation by Denikin, a secret agent of the All-Russian Cheka went to Moscow, secretly, of course. Among his acquaintances, Denikin officers, he takes messages for their friends and relatives in Moscow. He writes down accurately all the addresses and names in his notebook, and after his arrival in Moscow he turns it over to the All-Russian Cheka for it to haul in all these people. ‘They are all imprisoned, charged with being in communication with the Whites and with espionaga Among such cases that of a certain Shapinski, a young entomologist, who had been allowed to work at the Petrovsky Academy, has left a deep impression. : One of the Bolshevist Intelligence officers had managed in the above mentioned way to obtain from a White officer, a former student at the Petrovsky Academy, Shapinsky's ad- dress, and called on him to transmit the greetings. Shapinsky sald he did not remember any such name. “But ho said to me that if you should have forgotten I was to remind you that you were both working together at the laboratory,” answered the agent. The reply, “Perhaps so. Well, anyway, thank you for the greeting. How is he getting along?” Inthe night there ‘Was a house search made at the place where Shapinsky lives, He himself happened to be out, but a sister from the city had been visiting his friend, Modestov, and, with the permission of Shapinsky, she spent the night in the latter’s room. In this way Modestov happens to bo arrested for being in communication with Shapinsky, and his sister is also taken, although she fs soon released, In Shapinsky's room an ambuscade is left behind. In the morning he returns, A friend from the same house whom he meets warns him “Don't * go home. They were searching your place all night long, there is an amb’ de, nd Modestov und his elster are arrested.” “Non- eense! They could not have found anything there. This is surely some misunderstanding. I'll go and explain everything.” And he certainly ex- jained! ‘Modestov had to spend © year {n the Butyrki, and at last freed only thanks to the pe vistent efforts of Prof. ‘Tarasevitch as 8 much needed sctentist. Shap- insky was shot in September as a counter revolutionist. And yet, er he or Modestoy had anything do wlth polities, being ted exclus to science Wrong Man Ca t Into Pri the num Niche ound, name. was looking me of "Nichol Cheka plotter by the ‘avlovich,"” who was dressed in m uniform and often used to leave town from the Nikolaievsky railway station. So they discovered Voskresenski, who really used go frequently to his ring out to mother at Klin, and was we his old uniform of a military surgeo It required eighteen months, durini which his life actually hung by a thread, for the misunderstanding to that was, so to speak, the usual order of things, and the prison had become accustomed to this, speeding the de- parting victim on his way with op- pressive silence. While the doomed prisoner would busy himself packing up his things and getting ready to leave the cell would be hushed in awe. Some would attempt to'cheer the vic time with the hope that it might bi only another “scare.” ‘The atmosphere Was oppressive, but there was no panic. The only ones to betray a feel- ing of panic were those who had already been sentenced, and these would fairly move heaven and earth to avert, by denunciations and cring- ing servility, the sword of Damocles from their own heads and to divert it to some one else's, even if it be that of a neighbor and friend. However, a real panic broke out in August and September, when the Cheka proceeded to shoot in hes the bandits, plotters and speculators, alsd railway looters, Not a day passed but that the black automobile did not carry off several persons, when prisoners who had Just arrived would be snatched again from their cells, when Red army soldiers would be shot disloyal actions against the Soviet Government. Nervous fits, psychoses and hys- terics became -incredibly frequent. Both the prisoners as well as the ad- ministration :had their nerves on edge, and as to the suffering of relatives on the outside, left without letters and interviews with their kin, this defies all description. It was in this indeseribably oppres- sive atmosphere that the reverbera- tion of the explosion which occurred in the headquarters of the Moscow Committee of the Russian Communist party in Leontievski lune, between 9 and 10 In the evening of the 25th of September, 1919, found a dull echo. It was a calm evening and, as al- ways in the evening, the prison was listening intently. ddenly there ame the sound of an explosion. Most prisoners paid no attention to it, but some of us became alert, for the reverberation seemed too familar. Not even Falf an hour had passed when an angry command rang out through the corridors: “Lock all doors; let no ono out!” The cor- ridors filled with armed soldiers, click- ing their rifle locks, and through the EVEN LENINE COULD NOT CONTROL THE CHEKA. Speaking be cleared up. No alibis, personal con- frontations or anything else was of any avail. It would be easy to continue the Ust of such innocent and accidental prisoners ad infinitum, because they made up and still constitute the bulic of the inmates of the Butyrki, serving seally as a special item of revenue to the higher, lower and lowest Cheka officials. However, all hardships and physical and moral, tortures were as nothing compared with that atmosphere of un- certainty which was created by those constant and often unexplained shoot- ings. Positively not one prisoner, the Socialists included, could be certain that some mysterious “collegium” would not decree on the following day to have him shot, and that he would not be called out in the evening or late at night “With your things, to the city:" 1. @., to execution, hink what the conditions are un- der which these mysterious meetings of a “collegium,” composed of three accidentally chosen and constantly changing members of the presiding board, are making their decisions! Not without good cause did Dzerzhin- sky hasten, at the time of the whole- sale shootings (July and October to December, 1919) to take out of the investigators’ hands all Socialist cases, locking them securely in his safe, 80 there should be no “accidents.” + + + But people who don’t happen to be Socialists, people without a party organization to stand by them, or with a party which at the given moment does not cut any figure with the gov- ernment, these have to listen every night in fear and trembling to the steps in the corridor, to the horns of the automobi and to the rattlt of the locks, The case of « one of these was Hable to just come under the hands of the ‘collesiu and every one of them might draw fatal lot. The Shootings Went On Throughout the Sammer Properly speaking it may be sald that shootings never ceased through- out the summer. Once oz, twice & week a group of unfortunates would be carried away from the Butycki. In some unfathomable manner, but still invariably, the prison would learn of the arrival of that fatal automobile, and somewhat later, sometimes even of the same day, the names, egories and last place of confine- ment in the prison (cell, corridor) of the hapless victims, Rumors about the shootings themselves also would reach us, us the prison officials would discuss them frankly at the office, whence the details would come to us. In this way It became known that on in the month of February Dr. Sta- kovsky, who had been sentenced to death for having acted as “agent provocateur” under the Tsarist regime, had slashed his wrists at the Moscow Cheka prior to the shooting. But in February, March, April, May, June and part of July they were shooting only single individuals, by the verdicts of the tribunals or bandits apprehended on the spot, {. ¢, people who had been in prison already for a month or more and had to a certain extent become reconciled to the thought of t ir in- right territ the to Red Soldiers, Some Probably Chekists. for stealing only a few pounds of sugar from a car, and when they used to take out to execution people who were positively innocent, having been arrested merely through the trickery of “agents provocateurs.” Reason simply stood still as one would watch entirely innocent people who had been arrested in ambuscades losing their heads and hiding under their cots ut the sound of that fatal command in the stillness of the night: “With your things, to the elty; hurry up!” At such times the chairman of the Communist nucleus, Linkevich himself, would come, give orders to lock all cells (on some of the corridors the doors were left open in the day- time), and call out in rotation all these Ivanovs, Petrovs, Stepanovs, all these unknown people who but yesterday were still naively asking the Red Cross: “When will I at last be ex- amined?” In these lists of doomed prisoners were entered also such names as that of a butcher from Myusskala who had had the hardihood to te publicly the crude monuments in honor of Marx and Engels, made in the new Soviet style and put up in that thoroughfare, having called them scarecrows They shot the writer Hannibal for having contributed articles on Soviet Russia to foreign papers, as being a spy for the Allies. They shot men Ike Ogorodnikov, who had been at that time already a year in a coneentration camp, charg- ing him with complicity in a plot sup- posed to have been hatched by the Constitutional Democrats, which had just been discovered, and in which he could not himself have taken any part, 1s he was already a year in confine- ment at that time. + They shot obvious lunatics Uke Drisen, for instance, for stealing pro- visions from the institution in which he served. The allenists were unanl- pronouncing him trrespons!- bie for his actions; but the flliterate Linkevich proceeded to make a test of his own. He asked him what his name was and whether he knew the place he was in, and, satisfled by affirmative answers, he certified to the sanity of Drisen and the latter was shot. ‘ Flower of Learning Is Cast Into Prison as Madness Grows «Tho prison was fairly groaning, and the struggle for the improvement ot living conditions was‘ forgotten as all material hardships receded into tho background in the face of theso horrors, People literally ved only by da the night was passed in the ex- pectation of Commissary of Death, Ivanov, and his grewsome automobile, Small wonder that the well known progréssive leader and city magistrate of Moscow, Kropotkin, suffered a stroke when they came toward eve- ning to call him out with his things and when the keeper tn his rudeness failed to add that he was to go to the hospital. “Come on, with your things, quick!” Without regaining conscious- ness he died from that stroke. Meanwhile the discovered con- splracies were growing more and more numerous, ‘and the prison was being filled with Constitutional Democrats, professors, artists, representing the Gower ,of learning d © those who were shot ever new and counter-revolutiontsta we in. And these, too, windows we saw them pulling ma- chine guns into the yard. Markov, the valiant Cheka soldier from the front who had replaced tre former Commandant Liakhin, had the prison in a state of military preparedness within half an hour, armed himself to the teeth, prepared a supply of hand grenades and created such a panic among the poor prison dwellers that their teeth were simply chatter- ing. Witrin an hour we were al- ready informed, thanks to our connec- tions, about all that had happened and were waiting with bated breath for something terrible to follow. In the morning the papers printed the details, together with the cate- gorical statement of the authorities that this thing bad not at all been the work of the “underground an- archists,” but-that the White Guards, playing the part of anarchists, had tried to “stab the revolution in the back,” and so forth. If I may antici- pate, I should like to point out that the most careful investigation, as well as the confession of the persons arrested in this connection, have shown’ heyond @oubt that the explo- sion had been caused by the an- archists and a group of the Left Wing Socialist-Revolutionists (the so-called Cherepanov group), and from the “Red Book” of the All-Russian | Ex- traordinary Commission, which, how- ever, was confiscated’ immediately after it had been publisted, it is mani- fest that there was not even a trace of White Guards anywhere in this affair, but that there was, indeed, @ certain “Manya’ of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission implicated, According to the story told by Zak- narov, the commandant of the Mos- cow Cheka, Dzerzhinski, pale as death and in great citement, arrived at the Moscow Cheka and issued an order to shoot. according to the prepared lists, all Constitutional Democrats, gendarmes, representatives of the old regime and ail kinds of princes and counts confined in the Moscow pris- ons'and@ concentration camps. Thus, by a mere verbal order of one single individual, many thousands of people were doomed to immediate death. Of course there is no way of estimating accurately just how many victims they succeeded in shooting that night and the following day. But even at the lowest calculation the number of victims must be figured in hundreds. (There's one estimate of 7,000.) On the following day this order was coun- termanded through the Intercession of the All-Russian Committee and the Central eo of the Russian Communtst party. At noon of September 26 the first froup wis taken trom the Butyrkt and dr’ n straight to tho Petr ki Park, where they were shot. Tho cellars of the Cheka, where people are generally executed, were evide busy with their own “work,” so that there was no room for the Butyrki victims Among this first group Makarov, Dol- goruk!, Gresser and Tatishtc ve karoy remained firm to the end. ‘They came for him just before dinner, near 12 o'clock. To that fatal “With your things, to the city!” ihe answered calmly, “I have been ready for a long time.” Ske metho he packed his belongings, laying the y to have th family in Pet monced mates, we heka agen usually 1925, by case, but stood at the door silently, with downcast eyes. Makarov sat down at the table, still maintaining his self-possession and deeply ab- sorbed in his own thoughts. The con- cluding Unes of his note were as fol- low: ‘They have come after me, prob- ably to shoot me. I go calmly. It hurts to think of you. May the Lord protect you. Your unfortunate Papa.” Observing the sadness and tears all about him, he even tried to Jest. He turned to a Socialist-Revolutionist who happened to be in the cell, and proposed that they smoke a peace pipe together at least beforo his death. (Makarov having been Minister of Justice during the Tsarist regime, he had to prosecute the rpvolutionists.) Then, wrapping himself ‘in a blanket, his fur coat he sent to the wife, the r pipe in his mouth, the better e he bad also sent home, and hav- taken leave of his celimates and serenely, he went out into the corridor, erect, serious, calm, with measured steps. We then caught a glimpse of him crossing the yard, still calm and self-possessed as before; little later we saw him look up from the oul chamber’—the place from which the victims were led to execu- tion—and then he disappeared. Dolgoruki also went to his death calmly, with a careless smile playing about his lips all the way. As for those things which Makarov had sorted out with such tender care, alas! I doubt whether they ever reached His family. Then followed shootings “In batches,” and here those proscription lists that had been compiled by the agents of Commandant Liakhin during a com- paratively quiet period proved yseful. The Cheka had requested from the prison administration a list according to that already mentioned formula pre- scribed by Dzerzhinski—aristocrats, bourgeois and ministers. The adminis- tration tried to have the clerks which had been appointed from among the prisoners themselves compile such Usts. As most of these refused to do that they had to use the lists made up by men lke Bortnikov, Dayanovy and Leite. Even Cheka Chief's Plotting Is Exposed by Conspirator The latter character ought to be de- scribed in a fow words, at least. Hav. ing been in command of a Cheka de- tachment at the front “under special orders." or something of this sort, he decided to get rich quick, and planned to rob a messenger carrying an amount of money. But one of the men in his detachment, with whom he had planned the robbery, betrayed him, and, in- stead of the messenger, Lelte and his worthies found themselves confronted by an ambuscade. ‘There was some shooting, and Leite was captufed and sent to Moscow. Thé Tribunal sen- tenced him to be shot. but a year later, thanks to energetic denunciations and stool pigeon work, he was set free and appointed to a commissaryship at the Cheka, He was alroady a power to be reckoned with at the time we were in the prison, being appointed by the administration as monitor of the men's solitary confinement building, merci- lessly robbing the inmates of their bread, tobacco, sugar, &c. He was do- ing his best to instigate and provoke the newly arrived solitary prisoners, especially those who were prone to speak frankly to the “starosta,” not knowing that he was not elected by the prisoners themselves but appointed from above. He would go almost every week to the Tribunal to testify in cases about which he extracted information in the solitary cells under the cloak of his starostaship. The most {mportant ‘criminals’ were confined in the soli- tary cells, and Leite was therefore or- dered to compile a list of the classes indicated in Dzerzhinsky’s order. 60 he proceeded to make up a list, set- Uing personal accounts with all who had exposed his treacheries or did not care to speak to or have any dealings with him after finding out about his relations with the Cheka, It was as a victim of this same Yuri Leite that the entomologist, Shapinsky, referred to before, perished. Death Penalty Is Abolished, But 160 Are Quickly Executed ‘There was also kept in solitary con- finement a young clerk, accidentally arrested by an ambuscade left in a place next to his office. He either went to the wrong door, or else he wanted to ring up some neighbors on the telephone; whatever it might have been, the fact is that he found him- self trapped, although he had mani- festly nothing whatever to do with that affair. Still, Leites included him, too, tn his Ust, either as some “prince” or “counter-revolutionist,” for hay- ing picked a quarrel with him be- cause of some shortage of tobacco or sugar. During those days were also shot the two Konovnitzyn youths, who had been taken to the Cheka from the concentration camp from which they used to be sent to compulsory Jabor— to bury the bodles of people shot at the cemetery, At the same time old Naryshkin, Gen, Skrydloy (a brother of the admiral), Tseretelll, Gen. Zub- kov, and an endless procession of other less prominent prisoners found thelr doom, Everybody scemed to have gone mad: prisoners, administration and executioners! T#us one of the higher Cheka officials told a story about the chief executioner, Maga, a man who had shot in his day many a thousand Persons (the official who told us thts story mentioned the unbelievable number of 11,000 victims shot by Mara himself!). This executioner, having just finished a “Job” with a group of victims, throw himself upon the Commandant of the All-Russtan Cheka prison, Popov, who, as a de- votes of thie art, happened to be prevent at the shooting, with tho ery “ » off your clothes!" "His ey ishot, terrible to look upon, be- 8 1 With blood, Maga was cturk d and a. horrit told us, “P to ruz, t $e was a lucky t a men came aad plnioned 3 ht!” ttia nian 1, he b that the otaer in ithesn ga down; other- tim: Zhe New Yok Byseid, wise he would surely have finished Popov," our informant concluded his ghastly tale. Incredible rumors were rife in the city. Denikin had already long ago been driven back and was retreating to the South, so that it was high time to end this bloody orgy. At last, on January 14, 1920, capital punishment was abolished at the initiative of the All Russlan Extraordinary Commis- sion itself. However, while abolishing the death penalty the Cheka could not resist the temptation of a farewell gesture. . The decision of the All Russian Extraordinary Commis- sion had already been taken, and had even been printed in the New Year issues (Russian style) of the papers and yet, in the courtyard of the Mos- cow Extraordinary Commission 160 persons who had been left in. various prisons, cellars and concentration camps, those who, in the opinion of the Collegium, should not bé allowed to escape with their lives, were hur- riedly shot dead. In this, group perished also prisoners who had been sentenced by the Tribunal and had already served one-half of their terms in the concentration camps. The shootings took place on the 18th and 14th of the month. In the morning the prison hospital received from the Moscow Cheka a tatoes, winter {s coming, and, with it famine. The older ones are afraid to go into the field, as they are liable to be hit by bullets or executed. So they send Peta, The Whites came, found Peta in tho fleld, thrashea him and chased him home. On the follow- ing day he refuses to go. He then gets a Crubbing from his father and goes out to continue digging potatoes. The Red army appears. The first thing they do with Peta is to confiscate his potatoes. He refuses to give them up. He ts then thrashed in proper style and dragged off to the “Special Division" (of the Cheka at the front.—Tr. note). With nothing to wear but his under- clothes and without a hat, but with the title “spy,” he is sent to Moscow, to the Butyrki and put into “strict solitary” confinement. And for four months the prisoners had their fun with this baby spy gravely promenading in prisoner's shoes and mantle during the fifteen minutes’ exerc!se period.’ Later, when Zakharov was commandant, he was transferred, together with other chil- dren, to a colony for juveniles. For some strange reason the Di- rector of the Special Division at the front, Kedrov, seemed to have let loose his worst scorplons against children. He used to send children of all ages to the Butyrki in batches, patient suffering from a gun shot in his jaw and an injured tongue. By all Kinds of signs he managed to ex plain that he had been shot, but that they had not finished him off, and he considered himself saved, since they had taken him to the surgical division of the hospital and left him there. His face beamed with happiness, his eyes’ were shining with joy, and he seemed to be hardly able to believe his stroke of good fortune. It was impossible to obtain his name or his case, however, But in the evening, with his face bandaged, he was taken away and finished off. The decree abolishing capital pun- ishment was hailed at the prison with a breath of relief. For the first time in half a year the prison was hum- ming in the evening, faces were adiant with joy and jokes, laughter nd singing could be heard. No one now had to listen in alarm to the rumbling of the automobile or to the tramping of feet in the corridors, and that perpetual look of fear dis- appeared from everybody's eyes, with the exception of those few prisoners who, like that suicide, Zembitski, after his release, would never again find their mental balance restored. The prison was willing to take stock in this decree even though many signs Pointed to the prematurity of this trust. So for instance the Cheka agents used to chuckle slyly when- ever this was mentioned, saying: “Let them abolish it—those who had to be shot are already done for,” alluding to the wholesale execution following the passage of that decree by the All Russian Central Executive Committee New Year's night. In the eolitary confinement building was a group of “counter-revolution- ists” who were led from their cells with their belongings just before day- break of that terrible New Year's night, then left standing in the cor- ridor for two hours in fearful uncer- tainty, and . . . simply forgotten: The junior keeper on duty advised them to go back to their cells. To themselves, as well as to the rest of the prisoners, thelr fate appeared to be most unsettled; there were rumors that they were already booked as shot by the Cheka. Besides there was a loophole left in that decree: capital punishment was to be continued under certain conditions, and also in locali- ties where martial law was in exist- ence, as well as at the battle fronts. In March this group of thirteen or fourteen prisoners who had been for- gotten at the Butyrkl was trans- ported under a heavy convoy to some place near Saratov, where martial law was in force, and there they were shot. Still, in Moscow itself the wholesale shootings ceased and the prison breathed easier and turned to its do- mestic affairs. Little Peter's Experience At Hands of Cheka Agents A newly appointed commandant, Zakharov, a former stree ar con- ductor and a more decent person, found the entire management in a state of complete chaos. It will be sufficient to point out that in the men's soli- tary confinement bullding there were kept for months and months, under particularly strict regu! entire groups of “dungerous #p! children of 16, 14, 10 and even 8 years of age! MAKAROWVW and these little ones told how groups of children on their way from or to high school would be taken and shot at the front, under the pretext of fighting espionage. It is due only to Zakharov that these remaining children were finally taken out of the prison. But Zakha- roy had his hands full with other worries besides these. In this over- congested and filth reeking prison Spanish influenza, recurrent and spotted typhus were now beginning to Spread rapidly. The papers in the cases of many prisoners had either gone astray or else they were in,such a chaotic condition that it was im- possible to collect them. Still, it was urgently necessary to relieve the con- gestion of the prison. And now a strange thing happened: this same man, Zakharov, who in the course of a casual talk hud boasted of his revolver, which had done for many a White Guard in the “cellar” without missing fire once, displayed great hu- manity—going from one institution to another to intercede and to seek lost documents, transferring and releasing prisoners without recourse to any of- ficial formalities, often at his personal risk and responsibility. Patients With Typhus Sent to Hospital Only to Be Robbed To be sure there was need of haste, for prisoners as well as the admin- istration were down with spotted typhus. Prisoners were sent to the neighboring general prison hospital. Here the patients were robbed and starved without any attempt at con- cealment. The entire medical staff was stricken with the typhus. The hospital was built to accommodate only 400 patients, yet there were now 700 typhus sufferers. The only phy- sician 6till able to attend to her work was the woman doctor, Bayadjieva. There was no possibility of helping the patients: the barracks were not heated, the water supply did not func- tion, the care of the patients was left entirely in the hands of the ordinary criminals who had already been down with typhus, and there was neither time nor people to classify the pa- tients. And yet every day more and more already delirious typhus patients Were being brought in from all Mos- cow prisons. These patients, filthy, unkempt, were laid out like logs of wood, one next to another, frequently on the bare, filthy floor, as there was no supply of beds and linen. There could be no thought of disinfection, of course, as there was neither heat nor water. Often the corpses were left lying for hours and even days side by side with delirious and convalescing patients. Needless to say that all p: tients, toa man, no matter on what diagnosis they may have been sent to the hospital originally, wero stricken with spotted and recurrent typhus. The mortality was stupendous! ‘The morgue wag chockfull of stiff, stark corpses, as there were not even enough makeshift coffins. This final horror of unknown and unseen death from hunger and cold on the asphalt floor of the hospital barracks was to be the last purgatory through which I saw the prison pays during that year of 1919. My prison term came to an end. And now, when- ever I hear and read stories of the prison horrors I reca! those threo periods to which these memoirs aro ficated—hunger, terror and demics the old Tsarist privons—-only, e, still more ex nsively, open! Covtrued nest Barber Bill Routs Bobbed Hair Girl High Cost Helps Put Shorn Locks Out of Style. ow it is the high cost of haircuts that ts blamed for the decline of bobbed hair among the feminine followers of fashion. The girls have found short hair to be an expensive luxury “When the craze was new," safd an uptown hairdresser, “the girls wers lacking in barber shop experience. The had no idea of the constant attention required to keep bobbed hair in order The experience of their fathers and brothers meant nothing to them. Fre quent haircuts for the male members of the race were simply taken for granted and no thought was given b the girls to the cost of keeping the! shortened locks carefully and becom- ingly trimmed. “Soon they found that once bebbet their hair’ calls for steady outla, ic is considered that a girl must visit « barber shop several times a year anil that the gifted hair cutter is an expe in suggesting other things that cost money it is easy to see that the expe: Tuns into a tidy sum in the course of twelve months. Some of my steady customers have stopped coming| in and they tell me that it is because they can’t afford ft. They are letting their hair grow back to normal length to savo money.” Officials Frown on Suffrage in Mexico Mexico Crrr, Saturday.—The wo:nan suffrage movement is making soino progress in Mexico, but high Government officials are inclined to belleve that the time is not yet ripe to grant the fran- chise to women. For several years a desultory propaganda to this end has been conducted here, but the movement received its greatest impetus recently when Rafael Nieto, Governor of the State of San Luis Potos! and former Secretary of the Treasury, submitted a project to his State legislature providing for woman suffrage. Gov, Nieto’s action provoked mucn dls- cussion in the press, which believes that 4x will fail of passage. Secretary of terior Calles stated recently to newspa- permen that although he strongly favors woman suffrage he {s of the opinion that a great deal of educational work must be done before it can be accom- plished. U. S. Sights ‘Just as Good,” Says Yankee in Europe ‘The American woman had taken her chauffeur abroad’ with her. They had toured England, France, Spain, but no where had he been impressed. “There's better to be seen at home,” was his reg- ular comment. They went to Italy. But despite every- thing the guide sald and despite all. the sights shown him the chauffeur re- mained Indifferent. The climax was reached when the guide, seated by the chauffeur, broke into a torrent of praise of Vesuvius as that yolcano in eruption showed round a bend in the road. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “Vesuvi you had that in America!’ “If we bad that—what?" growled the chauffeur. “What would you do with !t?” sald the guide, thinking that at last the chauffeur was floored. But no, “Oh, that!" The American's voice was filled with disguest. “If we had that over there we'd turn Niagara on it and we'd all be safe.” Coal Fished From River by Philadelphia Houses. “Philadelphia has some advantages,” said a New York business man. “One of my friends over there has a small fac- tory on the banks of the Schuylkill Ho says that he lets down a big wire net into the river and twice a day raises {t and has several bushels of coal, enough sm to supply his needs. He says he has no.” doubt that if he would ratso the net oftener he would get more coal, but twice a day givés him all he can use. “The coal is fine, hardly more than dust, but after-it is dried it makes ac- ceptable fuel, and is obtaimed at no ex- pense and with less trouble than having it delivered by a coal man, It {s trans- ported from the mines far up toward the source of the river without any charge for transportation. Another Phi!- adelphia man said he could stick a bis pump into a silt at the bottom of the Schuylkill almost anywhere and pump up mud that burns well when dried and stoked with Intelligence.” Umbrella Sheds Street Mud as Well as Rain Not only can an umbrella give pro- tection when held {n an upright posie tion, but may be turned into a protector for one’s form by a modern Sir Raleigh. His dear lady nestling so closely to his ide need not be afraid of being sprinkled with mud, for when crossing a street filled with black puddles, and one of these -race-for-your-life taxis whizzes by, he merely changes the angle of the umbrella, putting it before her, and there it is vallantly protecting her skirts. What are a few drops of rain on the hat compared with mud on the dress or fur coat? Although he may not be knighted by the queen for his act of chivalry, he can very well throw out his chest and smile in a superior way when his arm !s tugged in gratitude by the queen at his side, Butcher Will Get Your Kitchen Knives Sharpened The butcher will get your knives ground for you. If you have knives that refuse to cut, knives that balk o the whetstone and refuse to ink ary edge, take them to the nearest butcher shop. When he has his own knives grou as he does once at least every week, will add yours to the pile and they will come back to you fine and sharp, ready, to cut anything fr o pin feather on a chicken's breast to a Iupbard squash. 4. Experience. ao am a dreaming Loved a gypsy When the stirs yw In uhe dey I, dancing Oh, T held tier to my heart And her ¢ Were all my