In my life-time, I have done “ time ” for a political offence. I have travelled for eight weeks on an emigrant steamer, found myself housed in an emigrant’s house in Brisbane, lived with a wife and family in the wilds of Queensland, as a young man worked amongst coal porters here at home ; but nowhere in all the world have I come across so filthy a hole as the so-called quarantine camp at Terijoki, Finland. The walls of the huts were covered with the dust and dirt of ages, the bed rugs and clothing had the appearance of not having been washed for a century, the sanitary arrangements were loathsome, and as for food, there was practically none. Inmates were expected to provide and cook for themselves. No pots, pans or utensils of any sort or kind were supplied. My soldier friends who had endured hardships under the Bolsheviks were now able to enjoy the luxury of prison treatment at the hands of a friendly government and, like me, they hated it. A person in this place without money would simply starve, not as in Russia because of shortage but for the very simple reason that the White Finns hate the Red Russians, and those interned are all suspected of being Reds.
As for quarantine, there was none. The last comers were mixed with the first—in fact, the place was a disease factory.
