Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-13

| twentieth DION i tainted. Out the ropes held me
up, and the full hundred were counted on m
body. They cut me down, rubbed rock salt and
water and some iron that eats like fire into my
back to stop the bleeding, and carried
me to the hospital. l lay there two months,
and was discharged l had but one idea
then, and that was vengeance. BY patience 1
managed to get employment in the governors
palace as a seamstress. One afternoon he was
in his bath, and he sent for towels. The attend
ant was tired, and l volunteered to take them.
I threw them over my arm. and under them
held a long ~stiletto, sharp as a needle. 1 en-
tered the room, and he was reading and smoking
in the bath. 1 laid the towels by his side with
my left hand. and at the next moment l drove
the knife through his heart. 1t was
splendidly done. He never made a sound,
1 am a Nihiiist. Do any of You doubt?'' She
sprang excitedly from her chair, and in half a
front Of her form from neck to belt might have
passed as the model OF the Venus de Milo. But
the back! Ridges, welts and burrows that
| crossed and interlaced as if cut out with a red
| hot iron, patches OF white, gray, pink. blue and
angry red, holes and hollows with hard, hideous
edges. half visible ribs and the edges of ruined
and heightened with the swaylng OF her body.
There was a gasp from everyone present. The
head, and helped her to put back her garments.
Then again the wine passed round, and what
secret toasis were made as the party drank will
never be known.
The historic chapter which this news
paper paragraph brought to my mind was
the story of Madame Lapoukin; the
briefest account of which is probably the
following, from the Knout, by German
de Lagny:
In 1850, under the reign OF the indolent and
luxurious Elizabeth, VINO had abolished capital
punishment, Madame Lapoukin, a woman of
rare beauty, of which the czarina was e%nvious,
was condemned to the knout and Transports
ton, in spite of the privilege of the nobility new
er to suffer the former punishment. She had
been feted. caressed and run after at court, and
had. it was SAID, betrayed the secret OF the en-
press's liaison with Prince RaZounowsky. She
was conducted by the executioners to the public
square, where she was exposed by one OF them,
who rolled up her chemise as far as her waist;
he then placed her upon his shoulders, when an
other arranged her with his coarse dirty hands
in the required position, obliging her to hold her
head down, while a man OF the lower classes,
sQuatting at her feet, kept her legs still. The
eXecutioner cut her flesh into -shreds by 100
strokes OF the knout, from the shoulders to the
lower portion of the loins. After the infection
of the punishment, her tongue was torn out, and
a short time subsequently, she was sent to Sibe-
ria, whence she was recalled in 1852 by Peter III.
For the successful development of
these journalistic literary and historical
facts and suggestions into a full three
volume novel, with truthful as well as
oharaC ~teristio accessories, it was neces-
sary that 1 should make q study of
Russian village life, n refresh my
memory with such chapters Of Russian
ulSIOTY DIS suOulO 6uGplS lit u llOlu luy
Imaginary characters and their actions
within the reasonable control of proba-
bllity. 1 was already fairly we'll &C
quainted with some of the best works of
Russian fiction, which are full of strong
local color and fine characterization,
Gogol's stories more particularly, but in
order that 1 might not stray from the
path of truth any further b is reason
ABLY permissible, l followed up the
narrative of the Times, in the
files of the Daily Telegraph and the
Jewish Chronicle: traced the anti"
Jewish riots throughout their lurid
march of fire and bloodshed; talked to
several travelled authorities as to their
experiences of Jewish life in Southern
Russia; n settled down to a careful
study of the literary, typographical,
political and historical literature of the
subject, in the course of which, for the
purposes of this story, L have consulted
and read 1.-the Jews and Their Perse-
cutors, - by Eugene Lawrence; 'FScenes
from the Ghetto, - by Leopold Kompert;
"The Knout and the Russians, - by
German de Lagny; elizabeth, or the
Exiles of Siberia - by Madame Coffin;
''Russia Under the Cars, - by Stepinak;
"PrIson Life in Slberia'' and "Crime
and Punishment, !" by Fedor Dostoifsky;
''The Russian Revolt by Edmund
Noble; 1.-THE Jews of Barrow" by
Kari Emil FRANCIS. "Russia,
Political and Social by l..
Tikhanirov; "Called Back" by
Hugh Conway; "Dead Souls by
Nikolai V. Gogol; "War and Peace, -
and Gamma Karena, I" by Count Tolstoi;
"a Hero of our Time, - by NJ. V. Ler-
montoff; "Russia before and after the
War, - by the author of Society as it is
in st. P~etersburg;'' ''The Encyc!opoe-
dia Britannica;'' "Russiaus OF To-
Day, " by the author of ''The Member
for Paris; - "The Russian Peasantry -
By S%tepinak, "Stories from Russia, ST.
IBERIA, Poland and Circassia - edited by
Russell Leer ''Chamber's Encyclope-
dia;'' George Remnants Century papers
on 'fPlains and Prisons Of Western ST.
IBERIA 4" and "Acrosss the Russian From
tier;'' Theodore Child's ''Fair of Mimi
Novogorod, !" in Harper's Magazine;
the Times pamphlet (befors men
toned Persecution of the Jews
in Russia, 1885," "Venioe, -
by Yriarte; "Venetian Life, 2"
by Howells; ''Sketches from Venetian |
History;'' ''New Italian Sketches by
j. Symonds, and other miscellaneous lit
erature. 1t will be seen that L name
these works without any view to classif- |
cation or order. A foreign criticism upon
the Venetian chapter of the story makes
it desirable for me to state that the in
PRODUCTION of a Russian interest in the |
royal fetes on the Grand canal is pure
invention. The pageantry is true enough;
the presence of the king and queen of
Italy; the illuminations n the rest, but
the red gondola aud the ghost of the la
gooDs belong TO the region of fancy, |
though they might easily AVE formed
part of the events of the time. | saw a
dead swimmer towed into an English
fishing port under very similar circum-
stances to those which 1 have described
as occurring in the waters of the Adri-
attic.
In taking leave of my readers, with al
due apologies for this personal note, 1
venture TO express a hope that they may
continue to feel an interest in the future
of the Mil5ankes, the FOrsyths, the
Chetwynds and the Klosstocks. If 1
made these people half as real to
them as they are to me, they will keep |
them in their remembrance as acquaint-
ances, if not as friends; and in reflective
I