Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-02-17
/! RUSSIAN CRUELTY.
AEARTLEss METHODS OF EXTRACT
ING TESTIMONY.

HEARTLEss METHODS OF EXTRACT
ING TESTIMONY.
! Practices Of the Officers of the Czar's
Department of Justice-How the Thirst
for Vengeance Is MISUNDERSTANDING
a Young Mother.
have space only for brief reference to
the many other methods of extorting testi-
mony from arrested persons which are
practiced by the gendarInes and the officers
Of the department of justice. One of the
most cruel of them, it seems to me, is the
custom of terrifying old and feeble parents
into the belief that their sons or
daughters will inevitably be hanged unless
they confess, and then sending the poor old
people, trembling with terror and blinded
! with tears, to make an agonized appeal to
their imprisoned children in their cells The
officials know very well that the children
will not be hanged-that it is extremely
doubtful whether they will even be brought
to trial They are kept in prison simply be-
/ cause the procureur hopes ultimately to OBJ
| tain information from them. II the torture
! of solitary confinement can be intensified by
| adding to it the entreaties of half frantic
parents, so much the better. A little fright
will benefit the old people and teach
| them to look after their children more
! closely, and the children's obstinate deter
mination not to betray their friends viii per-
haps be broken down by sight of the grief
and misery of their parents. 1t is a plan
which, to the official mind, works benef-
Gently both ways.
The aged mother of an exile whom
met in Trans Baikal was made to be-
ieve that her son would certainly
be hanged unless he told all that
he knew, and then, upon condi-
ton that she should try and persuade him to
confess, she was allowed to go to his cell. A
terrible scene followed, in which the white
haired mother, frenzied with fear and chok-
| ing with sobs, knelt to her son, chung about
his legs and tried to press her tear wet face
to his feet, as she implored him. by his love
for her, by her gray hairs, to promise that he
would answer the questions of the gendarmes.
The strain Of such a scene upon the emotions
and the resolution of prisoner who is weak
ened and depressed by months of solitary
confinement, who loves and reverences his
mother, and who sees her for the first time
since his arrest, and perhaps for the last time
before he goes to Siberia, is simply heart
breaking. The mother finally departs in de-
spair, bidding her son goodby as she would
bid goodby TO the dying, while the son lays
up the memories Of this bitter hour-the
cruel deception of his mother, the torture of
himself and the attempt to make the most
sacred of human feelings serve the purposes
OF the police-as memories which will steady
his nerves and steel his heart when the time
comes for vengeance.
This playing upon the deepest and most in
tense Of human emotions as q means of ex-
torting information from unwilling witnesses
is practiced more or less in all Russian pris-
ons where political offenders are confined
One prisoner, for example, after months of
solitary confinement, is promised an inter
view with his mother. Filled with glad an
ticipations, he follows the guard ont through
the long, gloomy corridor into the prison
court yard, where the mother is sitting on a
rude prison bench forty or fifty feet from the
door through which he energies At the
sight of the well remembered, loving face,
changed and aged by grief since he saw it
last his heart overaows with pity and ten
derness, and he rushes toward her with the
intention of taking her into his arms. He is
at once stopped by the guard, who tells him
that the interview is not to take place here,
but in the reception room OF the prison, to
which he is thereupon conducted. He waits
impatiently ten minutes-ffteen minutes
half an hour-and at last the door opens. As
he springs toward it he is met, not by his
mother, but by the procureur, who asks him
whether, after this further period of refec-
ton, he has changed his mind with regard
to answering questions. He replies that he
was brought there, as he supposed, to see
his mother, not for examination The
procureur, however, informs him that in
terviews with relatives are privileges
not granted to obstinate and refractory
prisoners, and that if he has nothing
to add to his previous statements he
viii be taken to his cell. Disappointed ard
enbittered, the young man goes back to soil
tary confinement with new cause for hatrea
and an intensified thirst for vengeance, while
the heart broken mother, whose misery has
only been increased by this brief glimpse of
her son under guard and in prison dress, re-
turns to her distant village home
In another case which t.alne to my knowl-
edge in Siberia, the prisoner was a young
married women with baby in her arms. She
refused to answer questions intended to elicit
eliminating evidence against her friends, and
the gendarme officer who was conducting the
examination threatened, if she continued OBJ
stinate to take her child from her She made
a pathetic appeal to the procureur and asked
him whether there was any law under which
the gendarme officer could deprive her of her
child if she refused to testify. The procureur,
instead of giving her direct answer, told
l.r hat xl,a 40,
sue would be not to raise a question as to the
legal authority OF the examining officer but
to tell him truthfully all she knew: then it
was certain that he could net take her child
from her" In the face of a threat so terrify-
ing to a young mother-she was not more
than % years OF age when 1 made her &C
quaintance in Siberia-she adhered to her
determination not to betray her friends. Her
babe was finally left in her possession, but
she suffered weeks Of torturing apprehension,
the mere remembrance Of which bathed her
face with tears as she told me the story
have devoted much space to these illus
trations OF the use of prison confinement as a
means of torturing political prisoners into
making confession, partly because my note
books are full of records of such cases which
were everywhere forced upon my attention
in Russia, and partly because it seems to me
to explain more clearly than any other fact
or set of facts the state Of mind in which so
called ''terroristic" activity originates.
Whatever view one may take of the events
in their moral aspect, one can see that such
causes might be adequate to produce such re-
suits without the ascription TO the Russian
revolutionists either of homicidal insanity or
inhuman ferocity.-George KEENAN, in The
Century,