Another consequence of the increased severity in the treatment of politicals was their widespread determination to break prison. Many escapes were attempted, and although they were for the most part frustrated, the feeling of unrest was so general that the authorities resolved to use more severe methods of coercion. A high official stated that they meant “to reduce the prison to order and give the politicals a lesson.” Daily life was made more and more irksome; privileges, great and small, were withdrawn; all books were removed; money, underclothing, beds and bedding were taken from them; they might possess nothing more than the bare necessaries allowed to ordinary convicts. But worse than all, the whole number, kept hitherto in one prison, was broken up into small parties and distributed among the various common prisons of the Kara district, where they were to be treated under “dungeon conditions.” This treatment meant more than the deprivation of small luxuries as above mentioned; it also entailed the loss of all exercise in the open air or communication with the outside, and a diet of only black rye bread and water, with sometimes a little broth thickened with barley. The removal was made forcibly. Cossacks were concentrated at the Lower Diggings in anticipation of resistance, or perhaps to provoke it, and suddenly a descent was made upon the prison in the dead of night. A strong, armed force marched into the prison with bayonets fixed, and seized the poor politicals as they were roused from sleep. They were stripped, searched, driven forth with blows and otherwise cruelly maltreated. The next morning, having been robbed and despoiled of all their private possessions, they were marched off under escorts to the other Kara prisons. They marched continuously for ten miles without food or drink, or a halt for rest, and one man who was chained to a wheelbarrow rolled it all the way. Goaded to desperation, those prisoners who were not ironed attacked the Cossacks with stones, but they were speedily overpowered. They arrived in a state of utter exhaustion at the common prisons, and were lodged two and two in “secret” cells, hitherto employed only for the safe custody of the worst criminals, which were bare rooms with no more furniture than the open _parasha_, or bucket, and with only the stone floor to sleep on.