without pipes of every sort and kind getting
choked and frozen up.
It will be said that I am smoothing over the very great shortage of food. I have no intention of doing anything of the kind. I have said over and over again that in Russia everybody was hungry, and prisoners were hungry as well as everybody else. The only difference between the prisoners and the rest of the population was that the former were, in fact, better fed. First, because the British chaplain, Mr. North, borrowed money right and left, and with this bought food wherever he could lay hands on it, and secondly because during the last few weeks the British Government was allowed to send in food for the special use, not only of the prisoners but of the British residents generally.
I spent one evening in the so-called prison of the sixty “ prisoners ” who were free. I found them complete masters of their surroundings. They were in excellent spirits, ready to quarrel with me on every point of detail and principle concerning Bolshevism. I was much amused with them, because of their actual condition and the condition under which their friends in England thought they were living.
One boy, complaining of his food, declared that often they did not get all the bread they were entitled to, but was immediately corrected by another who said, “ Yes. But when
