The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1876-12-01
RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION.
How Polish ExIIPs Are Punished in
Siberia.

| SIBERIA.
At time when SO many well-meanins
people are anxious that the benefits O.
Russian rule should be conferred on
Turkey, think they would do well to
read question from Rufn Plotrowski's
work on Siberia, which was published in
1863 by an English firm:
CHOW l approach dark episode in
Polish suffering. The civilized world will
doubtits truth and acknowledgements
as it once doubted the horrors committed
at Kraezentniky and Leknly in the days
| of the bar confederation; as it doubted
| the barbarities of Cherchyn; and listened
With incredulity when the story was first
| told how Catherine II. melted the
| peasants of Podolia and the Ukraine to
massacre and despoil their lords; and
how Suwarrow, after the storming of
Prague, left no living creature within its
walls. The world did not, and still does
not believe that this system was then
commenced which drives us away in
thousands into the heart of Russian
Siberia to fill prisoT s7.nd casemates that
in Warsaw in the days of Constantine,
brother of Nicholas, no Polish family
could lie down at night without the fear
that perhaps ere morning one of its
members might be torn away, consigned
to q dungeon, scourged, and tortured
with hunger and thirst, so that the con
fession needed might be wrung from his
agony. Sireinski and four Others who
had been drafted in the ranks of the
Siberian army were condemned each to
1000 blows with a stick, without mercy
If any one of the members outlived the
sentence he was to be sent to the Ner-
chinsk mines for the rest of his life. The
great mass of persons implicated were
variOusly condemned to 1900, 1000 or
500 blows with the stick, and those who
survived in some cases to hard labor for
life, in others for number of years to
penal colonization, and others again for
military service. At daybreak
two battaliOns of one thousand men
marched out of Omsk, one charged with
the execution of those condemned to
seven thousand blows, the other with
the execution OF the lesser sentences.
The battaliOns halted, each formed in
double line; face to face, leaving passage
through the lOng-drawn ranks. The exc
cutioner, Galafeyef, superintended the
arrangements, and remained with the
men who had to give the several thou
sand strokes. According to general
CudI8Cu
duties are placed closely shoulder to
shoulder in dealing the blows, but
slightly raise the arm from the elbow and
keep the feet together as when on parade
The sticks should only be 50 thick that
three can be drooped in a carbine-barrel,
on this occasion all this was reversed.
Galafeyef placed the soldiers at arms |
length from each other, made them raise
hni icr1i ~ h.,
sence, and the sticks were twice the |
usual weight and size. The victims
were brought from their prisons to the |
place of execution. The bloody work |
was begun simultaneously by both the !
battalions. From both came the same |
shrieks of agony. Sierocinski is left to |
the last and compelled to witness the fate |
of his friends ere his own turn came, and |
he had long to wait for that deadly walk. |
Then his shirt was stripped from his |
shoulders and his hands, according to the
in such cases, fastened to |
carbine held by two soldiers, who thus |
him to keep regular step. The |
order of march was given. The priest |
entered the street oSs-aeath, reciting, in |
a low voice, " 1Iiserere mel Dues 8ecl15GUa |
RGgndm mjserjcOrdidm tUam.' Galafreyel |
shouting frantically, Harder, harder, |
strike harder! = and the submissive toels
Of despotism obeyed so well that Siero-
cinseki, after walking once down the
line and receiving 1000 blows, fell in
sensible, weltering in his blood. He Vas
lifted to his feet to fall again immedi-
ately, and then hurdle, prepared for
this occasion, was brought. He was
bound on it kneeling, and so dragged
10 and down until his sentence was tul-
filed. He had given at FIRST few shrieks
IF agony, and still was breathing until
The 1000 blows, the remaining 1000 were
struck on his corpse, or rather his now
ieshless bone. Eye-witnesses assure me
hat the flesh was cut in strips by the
rods, the very bones were crushed and
'plintered, and the entrails exposed
Cor. London Daily Telegraph.