Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-07-21
ToRTUREs IN RUSSIA.
A Horrible Picture OF the Atrocities
inflicted Upon Prisoners.
Ns,r York Trih,,ne


A man with a conscience has sudden.
ly emerged from the Russian civil ser.
vice. This is Pavel Birwanski, an I'm
perial State Attorney, who has recently
been commissioned by the government
to make a special investigation of the
judicial and administrative business in
Orenburg. An account OF his experience
during the four months which his mis-
sion occupied has been published in the
SjeUerny VieStnik and translated by the
Telegraph of London. 1t is CHASTITY
record of misgovernment, Eeartlessness,
tyranny and barbarity.
The commissioner describes himself as
living in IAN atmosphere of appalling
groans and heartrending signs. He lib
Grated innocent captives who had been
secretly tortured and closely confied
for years after they had been publicly
acquitted in open court He received
the sworn statements of peasant women
whose flesh had been pinched with red.
hot tOugs as punishment for their pre-
sumption in pleading for their husbands
lives. He visited the state prisons, where
hundreds of prisoners draped in rotten
rags are condemned to lingering death
without ever being allowed to know
what has been LAID to their charge or
who has accused them of wrong. The
roofs of these charnel-ho wherein
they grovel are ready to fall in
upon them at any moment; the walls
are lined with damp and clammy
fungus; and the air in these loathsome
dens is so rank and fetid from 1.-The dirt
of ages" and calculations from every
sort of abomination" as absolutely to
stop the visitors breath. He learned
that absent-miDded prisoners, who used
the familiar form of Thou" in place of
"You in addressing the officials in
charge of their dungeons, were tied to
horses tail and tiogged with thorny rods
stepped in salt water, receiving some
times as many as one hundred and
twenty-five blows. He found in the in
firmaries the majority of the sick pa
tients stretched upon the bare boards and
often among the dead bodies of their
companions. $50 was it revealed to
me-" says the Commissioner, chow our
Judges trample the laws under foot how
cynical and wanton Is the behavior of
our police; how savagely brute force is
brought to bear upon the weak and
friendless."
1nC hOob WAlCn
the Commissioner makes relate to the
town Jail of Hezk, not far from Oren-
burg. All the prisoners had been led
out on one occasion to public square,
and not so much beaten as half ham,
meTed to DEATH" so that the populace
"wept bitterly and crossed themselves in
utter CONSERVATION. AS the details of
this horrible outrage are recited, they
were first logged until they tainted; next
they were soused with buckets of water
until they regained consciousness, and
then knocked about with prison keys, iron
chains and rifle stocks, and finally they
were all tied together by the feet and
driven into the prison yard, where they
fell from sheer exhaustion in bleeding
and disfigured heaps. The governor of
this Jail, who had ordered this punish
ment to be inflicted upon all the prison
ers, without exception and solely for his
own amusement, was once Commissary
of Police and had been dismissed from
the service for shameless corruption; yet
he had retained sufficient influence in
high quarters to secure another and more
responsible post, where he could satisfy
the beastial instincts of his nature and
wreak his savage vengeance upon the
helpless fellow creatures committed to
his charge.
The man with conscience, who used
his eyes to such good purpose, was not
allowed to pursue his Investigations
longer than four months. He met with
resistance from bench, bureau and mill
taTy headquarters. He did not attempt
to accomplish very much. He only
aimed tn Give the wrptphed caDtivpS q
little air and little light, and to pro.
tect them from torture and human pun
ishment Yet he was dismissed from
the public service as one of the secret
allies OF the Nlhilists, and the newspa
per which published his painful nara
tive was suspended indefinitely.