There are occasional, but very rare, exceptions among ex-convicts who elect to remain and settle down in the colony. Mr. Hawes tells us of one, a Cossack from the Caucasus, probably an old insurgent, who, with tireless industry, had made himself a home at the village of Uskovo on the upper waters of river Tim, some fifty miles from Alexandrovsk. This man with infinite labour had cleared enough of the primeval forest to sow a respectable crop of corn, some 150 puds or upwards of 5,000 English pounds, which returned him a twelvefold crop. He was a careful farmer, and sowed his seed with judgment, unlike most of the peasants who scattered it at one place insufficiently and at another in excess. Yet good harvests might be secured by steady industry, were the peasants only willing to give agriculture a fair trial. Another similar case was that of a free-command convict, whose wife had followed him out from Europe. He was permitted to live with her outside the prison on condition that he performed his allotted task of hard labour, which was to haul tree trunks into Alexandrovsk to the number of one hundred and twenty. He was energetic and thrifty, and by the aid of a loan from the crown purchased a number of draught ponies to help him in hauling, by which means he contrived to get a certain amount of spare time to work on his own account. He had struck a new idea, inspired by the fact that a steady traffic in oxen and ponies, bound to the town bazaar or market, constantly passed his door. He established a sort of livery stable in a little courtyard adjoining his cottage, where he provided shelter for the cattle and sleeping places for the drovers on beds of hay. He soon did a large business and prospered greatly.
Sometimes there was a sad slip between the cup and the lip. It is on record that an exile settler by unremitting diligence had put by enough to pay for his passage home at the expiration of his term of exile. On his way to Alexandrovsk, he was resting on a bridge when another villager of the free command came and seated himself alongside. Suddenly, as they chatted pleasantly together, the newcomer knocked the other senseless with a heavy blow on the head, and having rifled his body, dropped it into the stream running below. He thus became possessed of his victim’s pocket-book containing his money and the certificate of the expiration of his sentence. Fate was adverse, however, and when he proceeded to make use of his ill-gotten gains, the certificate was recognised as the property of the deceased. Arrest and detention were followed by full discovery of the crime and its punishment.
At Saghalien there was no security to life and property in the towns and still less safety in the interior, which was ravaged and harassed by the vagrant convicts, continually moving to and fro. Murder was committed daringly and unblushingly on the smallest temptation, such as the possession of even a small sum of money. When Mr. Hawes was at Alexandrovsk, he met when on his way to church a couple of men just out of hospital who had evidently been drinking. One of them reeled a little in his walk and was manifestly drunk. Within a few hours this luckless creature lay, a corpse, in the market place. He had been murdered by his companion for the six or seven rubles he carried in his pocket. Three days later, a man living near the market place imprudently sat near the lamp at an open window, and was shot through it. Hawes describes the cemetery he visited on a hill to the north of the town; it was filled with wooden crosses, black, brown and green, clustering thickly, and much the same epitaph was inscribed on all, “Here lies —— murdered —— 18—.” No mention was made of the assassin; that was quite unnecessary. The victims were buried both singly and in groups of three, four or five. The theatre of the crime was usually the market place or bazaar near-by, where quarrels were frequent and weapons such as knives, daggers and revolvers were constantly employed. Murderous assaults and hand-to-hand fights were repeated almost daily, and the police seldom took notice of the disturbance. Men were often pointed out in the open road who had half a dozen or more murders to their credit. Mr. Hawes saw one hovering near his hut who had slain eight victims, and it seemed inexplicable that such a miscreant should be suffered to be still at liberty. His immunity was due to his prompt escape into the taiga or wild, wooded interior. Convicts who did so might be captured some day, but were seldom identified or there was insufficient evidence to secure their conviction. The authorities, too, were generally callous when one villain murdered another, philosophically saying, “After all the brutal crowd has been well diminished by one.” Of course if an official was murdered, more serious steps were taken to bring the offender to justice. A Saghalien murderer was known to have committed the capital offence nineteen times, and still evaded punishment.
Female murderers were plentiful enough on Saghalien, and one of the most remarkable was a certain Sophie Bluffstein, commonly called the “Golden Hand.” As a criminal, she had few equals among wrong-doers in any land. She was a Jewess, who, as a girl of rare beauty, had married a man of her own race, a financial agent, but she left him when his affairs became entangled. She developed into a cosmopolitan adventuress who made the capitals of Europe her stage, and was well known in London, Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg. Her business was to victimise tradesmen and attract lovers over whom she gained extraordinary influence. Her frauds were extensive and on the well-known lines. She lived in great style in a smart house, in the most fashionable part of the city, and drove in her carriage to the best shops where she made large purchases of jewelry and valuables, for which, of course, she never paid. Her depredations were on a colossal scale and she was “wanted” by the entire police of Europe.
Sophie Bluffstein’s personal fascination was unrivalled. Her chief charms were her wonderful eyes, which seemed to have had magnetic effect upon her admirers and drew them irresistibly to her feet, tempting them to commit any crime to secure her good graces. One of her greatest triumphs was the beguilement of the governor of Smolensk, where she had been arrested and incarcerated. Her influence over him was such that she induced him to connive at her escape, to desert his wife and family, and to accompany her in her flight. The connection was brief, and she resumed her evil courses, until she was caught in a trap at a gay supper party of young men, some of whom were terrorists, and which was broken up by the police. Arrested as a political offender, she was sent to Siberia, where in due course she escaped, was recaptured and deported to Saghalien.
Here she renewed her criminal activity, and when released from prison to enter the free command, she gathered round her a choice collection of the worst characters, whom she employed as her tools in the crimes she planned and had carried out. In one case, a merchant, carrying on his person a large sum in rubles, was robbed and murdered. The money was so cleverly buried by her that it has not yet been discovered. Her operations were greatly aided by a ship her confederates had seized and openly used as a pirate craft. To check her villainies, she was shut up at last in the testing prison at Alexandrovsk and kept constantly handcuffed. Yet she eventually regained her liberty, and after living more peaceably for a time at Rikovsk, she was allowed to settle at Vladivostok, where she kept an inn until her death.
That life was held cheap at Saghalien will be shown by the following story. A merchant of Alexandrovsk had reason to suspect his wife, a young and beautiful Tartar woman, of infidelity, and when he upbraided her she ran off and left him. She was never seen again, and it came out afterward that he had hired an assassin at the price of twenty-five rubles to kill her, according to the provisions of the Mahometan law. The assassin and his employer quarreled over the ghastly business, and the latter simplified the matter by hiring a second assassin to murder the first. But the second murder was not so successfully accomplished as the first; the victim escaped; the merchant was arrested, and a witness came forward to say she had seen him preparing a noose to hang his wife on his own account. No arrest was made for some time, and even the merchant was let out on bail.
Thefts and highway robbery were of constant occurrence, and burglaries also, both of private houses and government stores. There was a large floating population of desperadoes, which was continually recruited by the fugitives from justice, prison-breakers and vagrants from the free commands, and exile settlers who preferred depredation to industry. The brodyaga was a greater scourge in Saghalien than in Siberia, another and a potential check to the development of the colony on account of the terrorism exercised over the well-disposed settler, whom he robbed and maltreated. They worked generally in organised gangs, armed with stolen rifles which they readily used. The most dangerous gang was that of which the chief and captain was the notorious Barratasvili, the Robin Hood of the island, whose feats are still remembered.
Barratasvili came to Saghalien first as an exiled forger, and he passed through his prison probation with an exemplary character. He was looked upon as a mild and well-disposed man, quite amenable to discipline. When he joined the free command, he became a domestic servant and continued to be well-conducted until suddenly he ran off and escaped to Nicholaevsk on the mainland. He was pursued, taken and brought back to Saghalien, only to give his escort the slip and gain the recess of the forest, where he all but died of starvation. By the murder of a merchant on his way from Dui to Alexandrovsk carrying the price of a horse he had lately sold, Barratasvili obtained funds and became the leader of the band which soon began to ravage the district. He was like the typical brigand, waging war with the rich but in sympathy with the poor, whom he succoured instead of attacking. He was daring and unscrupulous in his robberies, shooting “at sight” all who offered the slightest resistance. As he became more and more reckless and his crimes multiplied, the hue and cry was raised against him, and wide plans were laid to capture him, all of which he successfully evaded, still boldly showing himself where he was most “wanted.”
On one occasion at Alexandrovsk, a strong detachment of soldiers searched the town, house by house, in the small hours of the morning, bent upon taking him, but quite fruitlessly. Yet four hours after the search had begun, he was seen by a friend in the neighbourhood passing along the street with no more disguise than being muffled up in a fur-lined coat. Again, he entered a store in the town and having posted a sentry to keep watch, proceeded to ransack the place, emptying the counter cases of their jewelry, the tills and the safes of their cash. The recklessness of these thieves was so great that they entered the town and had their photographs taken.