The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1895-06-27
rAss.% 4 - - = - 81 y
THE RUSSIAN KNOUT.
A BRUTAL PUNISHMENT INFLICTED
IN THE CARS DOMAIN.
Claim That Its Use In Some Respects Has
Been Aboiished-The Use of the Cruel
Instrument Described by q Political

Been Abolished-The Use of the Cruel
Instrument Described by q Political
Exile who Has Suffered In Siberia.
One never knows for certain how
much of the knout is left in modern
Russia The telegraph wire still at times
carries the horrid whizs of it from re-
mote Siberia, and only the other day I
saw mention in news from st. Peters
burg of "a new imperial ukase, abolish
ing the use. of the knout for the punish
mento of offenses committed by the peas
antTy, which has hitherto been complete
~ at the mercy of the local judges in
this respect. was under the impress
sion that the 'tlocal judges" had. been
deprived Of their knout for 90 years or
more, but the sender Of this message
adds that statistics were submitted to
the car, showing tfSt in ten years 8, 600
persons, mostly gull of thefts of prod
uce, had died after punishment with the
knout. = IT RE#
Granted the infection of the hout,
the 5000 deaths are easily believed.
The instrument itself, supposing this re-
port to- be true, evidently dies harder
than its victims But even in Russia,
wheee the rod and its equivalents have
had a more extended and bloody exist
tIlce than in any other European state,
the humaner spirit of the age has been
felt, ard one is disposed to regard as ex-
aggerated the statements just quoted.
Certainly we had been given to believe
that the knout was abolished for all but
the gravest offense as long ago as 1866.
But Russia has never been governed
wholly by its written laws, and there
are regions of that empire where ukase
may be slow to reach the g local judges.
The merciful edict of 1866, however,
stopped short at the confines of Siberia,
and it was with the object of learning
TO what extent the knout is used in the
Siberia of today that I sought an inter
view with distinguished and very in
teresting exile, NJ. Alexander Sechac-
zewski, on visit TO England. NJ. So
chaczewski, a Pole by birth, an artist
by profession, and in England to ar
range for the exhibition Of picture
which Will move the sympathies Of ev
cry friend of the victims of the cZar,
was political exile in Siberia at the
age of 2l and suffered AZ years in the
mines, during az of which he carried,
night and day, chains of which marks
are permanently craven on his ankles
Twenty years in all We're the days of
his exile, and he counts himself happy
that he did not, like SO many of his
comrades in oppression, perish under
that cruel yoke. Indeed he speaks with
out bitterness and says that even in ST.
IBERIA one may often forget oneself.
NJ Sochaczewski could say much about
the knout. He had been many times
witness of its infection. The nout, in
fact, was In use I'D the mines during the
whole of NJ. Sochaczewski's exile, and
those wins were condemned to it suffered
III public.
At the present day NJ Sochaczewski
believed that it was practically abolish
ed IN 1898, but the governor retains
certain discretionary power, which may
mean much IN Siberia. Would M. So
chaczewski describe the punishment:
He took a half sheet of note paper and
pen and made rapid sketch. "That is
the knout,'' he said A band of leather,
as is well known, serves the execu-
TONER for handle, and the knout it
self is a single thong of leather, rough
and very hard, tapering toward the ex-
tremity. where it is weighted with
ball of lead. With this the executioner
who is generally a reprieved murder
er-can infiict as great or as little suf-
fering as he pleases.
'tThus, said NJ. Sochaczewski, 1.-THE
prisoners would sometimes give him
ruble to prove his skill, when he would
strike one of them, apparently with full
force, across the palm of the hand, but
the blow would scarcely be felt and
would not leave scratch. With the
same instrument he could kill at a single
stroke, and was occasionally bribed by
a condemned prisoner TO do so, breaking
the ribs and almost tearing out uae
heart.
What number Of strokes, I asked NJ
Sochaczewski, were ordinarily inflicted?
He replied that it was of no great con-
sequence, inasmuch as punishment with
the knout was generally regarded as
sentence of death. A man under SEN,
tence of 100 lashes might die at the
third lash, IN which case the remaining
81 would be given to the corpse. 1t was
possible, If the executioner did not en-
ploy his whole art or strength, for the
victim to escape death, but he would
then inevitably be a cripple for the rest
of his life. There were men in the hos
pital in his time whom the knout had
MANNED forever. ss - as y
/ ask whether the knout exhausted
the resources of penal discipline in ST.
IBERIA by no means" said NJ So
chaczewski
He took up his pen again, and scratch
ed me a picture OF a whip called the
plet, which has three tails of twisted.
leather, with bits of metal at the tips
1t is little less deadly than the knout,
but an expert f1ogger can kill his victim
1T the fifth stroke. There is difference
in fiogging with the knout ana with the
plet. The 1nout. like the English cat, =
is laid across the back The three tails
of the plet score the back downward,
from the nape of the neck to the loins,
and every stroke, properly given. carries
away three strips of skin and bites well
into the flesh. Yes. NJ Sochaczewski
had seen many comrades suffer under
the plet. Protest: To what end?'' To
protest was to be tied up oneself. The
very fogger ran the risk of being cut to
pieces with kaout or plet if he failed to
kill or MAIN his victim. -St. Paulis.