News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-05-09
THE RUSSIAN POLICE.
How They Extort Money From the
Poor Peasants.

Some of the methods resorted to by
the rural police for the purpose of ex-
torting money from the peasants are ex-
tremely ingenius and original. Some
time before we passed through the town
of Tiumen in Western Siberia, the
zasedatel for that district received in
formation that the body of dead man
had been found in the woods on the out
skirts of peasant village about ninety
versts away, and that the man had APP
parently been murdered. 1t is the duty
of the zasedatel, under such circum-
stances, to go ut once to the place where
the body hns been found, Investigate the
lage dead house, to awi.it saF.r ssHAi,'el OF
the district surgeon, whose duty it is to
make post-mortem examination. The
zasedatel started ut once for the village.
The district surgeon happened at the
time to be absent from home on duty,
but an order was left for him to follow
the zasedatel as soon as he should re-
turn. The police officer, upon reaching
his destination, inspected the dead
body and the place where it lay, and
then, pending the arrival of the district
surgeon, ordered it removed to the vii
lage. He was aware when he left TIumen
that there was in this village no dead
house, and he had already conceived the
idea of using the corpse as means OF
extorting money from the inhabitants.
He therefore ordered it to be taken to
the house of one of the most prosperous
peasant farmers III the place, whose
daughter, he had heard, was about to be
married. The CHASTITY burden was borne
ON an extemdeorized litter of pine boughs
to the well-to-do peasants door, and de-
posted ON the ground in full sight of
the windows, while the police officer
went in and announced to the horror
stricken peasant proprietor that, as there
was no dead house in the village, he
should have to put the body in the
PEASANTS house until the district sur
geOn should come to make the post
mortem examination.
"Akh Bozhemoir' tgood heavens!''
exclaimed the peasant, 81 can't keep
the body of murdered man for two or
three days in my house; my daughter is
The zasedatel, in his gravest official
tone, said that he was very sorry, but
that he must do his duty. This was a
very serious case; the man had been
murdered, no one knew who he was,
safety until it could be identified and
post-mortem examination made. 1t
might prove to be serious matter for
the whole commune, and the peasant
would have reason to be thankful If
nothing worse happened to him than the
bringing of the body to his house.
The poor peasant was in despair. He
knew that the police officer had power
to bring that bloody corpse into his
house-that, in fact, there was a sort OF
legal warrant for it; and he also knew
that if he offered forcible resistance to
the police he might have to pay for it
with months of imprisonment, If not
with hard labor at the mines. He there
fore implored the Zasedatel to have the
murdered man taken somewhere else,
and intimated that he would rather pay
fifty rubles than have his daughters
wedding postponed, and all his children
frightened into raving manlacs by the
presence of that distigured corpse in the
house at night. This suggestion of pay
ment was all that the police officer
wanted. He changed his tone little,
admitted that it acdS particularly hard
case when a man had II daughter about
to lie married, and intimated that if the
peasant showed a disposition properly
to appreciate the favor, he (the police
officer) aoould take the body somewhere
else. They soon came to an under
standing rs to terms-I think they com
promised on thirty rubles-and the "a
sedatel took the body to the house of
another well-to-dO peasant. Here he
went through the same comedy, extorted
fifteen or twenty rubies more, and then,
encouraged by his success, carried that
dead body to all the houses in the vii
lage where he thought he could get
money enough to make it worth while,
and finally, late at night, caused the
corpse to be put IN an old empty fish
storehouse, where he might just as we'll
have put it in the first place.-Century
MGQ0zine.