The police arrangements struck me as being particularly good. In the daytime mounted men are continually patrolling the streets to prevent any congestion of the traffic—a very necessary measure, considering the reckless manner in which Siberians drive. At night there is a curious and truly Eastern custom still in vogue in this important city; watchmen parade the streets, continually agitating a peculiar sort of knocker which emits a sound not unlike that of the rattle our policemen used to be provided with. What is the reason of adhering to this primitive custom I have been unable to learn. Perhaps Siberian thieves are known to be nervous, and this arrangement frightens them, and deters them from contemplated misdeeds. Certainly the watchmen themselves would not have that effect on anything but a very old woman or a young child, for they were usually aged and decrepit fellows, who looked as though they ought to have been at home and in bed instead of out all night. Fortunately the Irkutsk streets are safe enough during the dark hours.
THE MUSEUM, IRKUTSK.
CHAPTER XVII.
PRISON LIFE IN SIBERIA—continued.
The Irkutsk prison—Comparative liberty of prisoners—Incongruities of prison life—The “shops”—Prison artists.
THE RECREATION GROUND, IRKUTSK PRISON.
There was always so much to see and do in Irkutsk, that the five weeks I spent there were fully occupied. The prison life of Siberia has always interested me highly, for I had read so much of it before coming to the country that I never missed an opportunity of seeing as much of it as possible. One of my first excursions, therefore, was to the gaol here. As at Yeniseisk and Krasnoiarsk, the officials were politeness itself, and although the ostrog here is a really important one, containing as it does no less than twelve hundred prisoners (owing to the recent burning of the Alexandroffsky prison), I experienced not the slightest difficulty in being shown all there was to be seen. The authorities offered me every assistance in their power, and no secret whatever was made of it; the governor-general of Irkutsk, to whom my mission as a special artist and correspondent was well known, even going so far as to send me a courteous message, saying that he would be pleased to let me see all I wished of the prison life, and hoped that I would only write the exact truth about it! So I spent a long morning there, walking round with the director, the doctor, and other officials, and saw and sketched as much as I wished, and only had to ask to be told all I wanted to know.
