This religious intolerance is painful to all, and especially to the peoples recently subjected to the authority of the Czar, to the Polish exiles for example, who, although sincerely Catholic, are compelled to bring up their children in the orthodox faith. Alas! since the insurrection this grievance is only a part of the sufferings these poor wretches have had to endure.
They have, at first, been led on foot, with their hands bound behind their backs, to the spot of exile that has been assigned to them in Eastern Siberia: some to Irkutsk, and these were the most favoured; others to Yakutsk, or the island of Tarakai, known to the Russians by the name of Saghalien, or to Kamtchatka. Many perished on the way, as may easily be supposed, and those who were strong enough to brave exhausting fatigues were, on their arrival, thrown into the gaol, to keep company with thieves and assassins.
It is singular to remark a circumstance that clearly shows the fetishism with which the Emperor’s person is surrounded; these assassins at the gaol look down on their comrades from Poland with the utmost disdain, and often refrain from speaking to them, under the pretext that the crime of the Poles was rebellion against the Czar. The Russian assassins have therefore, it seems, a kind of conscience when it involves a question of conspiracy.
The Polish exiles I saw here were submitted, for five years, to the same treatment as the other convicts. They were numbered in red on the back, and for a mere trifle were punished with the strait-jacket, or twenty strokes with the rod. During five years, they passed the winter in this prison I have mentioned, sixty or eighty thrown together into this horrible chamber without air and almost without light, and the summer in working at the mines with an hour’s rest during the day and a nourishment barely sufficient.
Their lot, happily, is now much better: except the liberty of going beyond the limits of a certain assigned district, they enjoy the same advantages as other Russian subjects. They constitute, besides, at Irkutsk, it must be admitted, the most intelligent part of the population; and receiving no assistance from the Government, they gain not only their living, but sometimes even a fortune. They are medical practitioners, professors, musicians, or theatrical performers. Some even, who in Poland formed a part of the aristocracy, have taken to opening shops, where they sell all kinds of objects from Moscow, St. Petersburg, or Warsaw, articles which, brought from such a distance, fetch a high price and reward their sellers with a considerable income. One among these enjoying the title of count, and for this reason unwilling to follow from the beginning the general example, was, at the time of my visit, reduced to the humble occupation of cabdriver.