The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1895-11-07

claim Tint Its Use In Some Respects Has
hcen Abolished-Thc Use of tho Cruel
Instrument Described by a Political
Exile Who Has Suffered In Siberin.
Ono never knows for certain how
much of the knout is left in modern
Russia. The telegraph wire still at times
carries the horrid whiz of it from re-
mote Siberia, and only the other day
saw mention i'll news from st. Peters
burg OF new imperial ul1ase, "abolish.
ing the use of the knout for tho punish
ment of offenses committed by tho peas
antry, which has hitherto been complete
~ ut the mercy of the local judges in
TINS respect" 1 was under the impress
sion that the local judges" had been
deprived of their knout for 20 years or
more, but the sender of this message
adds that statistics were submitted to
tho Car, showing that i'll ten years 5000
persons, mostly guilty of thefts of prod
uce, had died after punishment with tho
knout.''
Granted the infliction of tho linout,
the 5000 deaths arc easily believed
The instrument itself, supposing this re-
port to DO true, evidently dies harder
than its victims. But even in Russia,
where tho rod and its equivalents have
had more extended and bloody exist
encc than in any other European state,
the humaner spirit of tho ago has been
felt, and ono is disposed to regard as ex-
aggcratcd the statements just quoted
Certainly we had been given to believe
that tho lnout was abolished for all but
hn f,Hp
But Russia has never been governed
wholly by its written laws, and there
are regions of that empire where ullaso
may be slow to reach tho "local judges. "
Tie merciful edict of 1866, however,
stopped short Mt the confines of Siberia,
and it was with the object of learning
to what extent the luout is used in tho
Siberia of today that sought an inter
view with distinguished and very in
teresting exile, NJ. Alexander Sochac-
zewslii, on q visit to England. NJ So
chaczcwski, % Polo by birth, an artist
by profession, and i'll England to ar
range for the exhibition of n picture
which will move the sympathies of ev-
cry friend of the victims of tho car,
was Il political exile in Siberia at the
age of Fl and suffered AZ years i'll the
mines, during 211a of which no carried,
night and day, chains of which marks
are permanently craven OH his ankles.
Twenty years in all were the days of
his exile, and he counts himself happy
that he did not, like SO many of his
comrades i'll oppression, perish under
that cruel yoke Indeed he speaks with
out bitterness and says that even in ST.
IBERIA one may often forget oneself.
ID. SochacZewski could say much about
the knout. He had been many times u
witness of its infiiction. Tho knout, in
fact, was in use in the mines during tho
whole of M. Sochaczewski's exile, and
those who were condemned to it suffered
i'll public.
AT the present day M. Sochaczewsl1i
believed that it was practically abolish
cd i'll 1893, but the governor retains Il
certain discretionary power, which may
mean much i'll Siberia. Would NJ So
chacZcwski describe the punishment?
He took half sheet of motto paper and %
pen and made rapid sketch "That is
tho inout," he said. A band of leather,
as is we'll known, serves tho execu-
toner for q handle, and tho knout it,
self is single thong of leather, rough
and very hard, tapcring toward tho cx-
tremity, where it is weighted with q
ball of lead. With this tho cxecutioncr
who is generally repricved murder
er-can lnf1ict as great or as little suf-
fering as he pleases.
Thus said M. Sochaczewski, "tho
prisoners would sometimes give him n
ruble to prove his skill, when no would
strike one of them, apparently with full
force, across the palm of the hand, but
tho blow would scarcely be felt and
would not leave scratch With the
same instrument he could kill at single
stroke, and was occasionally bribed by
q condemned prisoner to do SO, breaking
the ribs and almost tearing out tho
heart.
What number of strokes, asked M.
Sochaczewski, were ordinarily inflicted
He replied that it was of no great con-
sequence inasmuch rs punishment with
the knout was generally regarded as 81
sentence of death. A man under sen
tence of 100 iashes might die at tho
third lash, III which case the remaining
81 would be given to tho corpse. 1t was
possible, if the exccutioncr did not eln-
ploy his whole art or strength, for the
victim to escape death, but he would
then inevitably be u cripple for the rest
of his life. There were men in the hos
pital in his time whom the knout had
manned forever.
asked whether the knout exhausted
the resources of penal discipline in ST.
IBERIA "By no meansD said NJ So-