Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1895-10-17
TORTURE OF THE KNOUT.
Russia Barbarous Method of Punish
ment Finally Abolished.

Aside from the victims themselves
and those who have been witnesses
or active parties to their horrible tor
lures very few persons have had any
adequate conception Of the fiendish
DafDarouSnesS Of the Russian inStru-
ment OF punishment, the knOut. In
deed, even in Russia the extent to
which it was used and the terrible
nature of the outrageous work for
which it was responsible were not
fully realized. The new imperial
ukase 'abolishing the use of the knout
for the punishment of offenses COM
mItted by the peasantry, who have
hitherto been completely at the mercy
of the local Judges" was the direct
result of something distinctly in the
nature of a revelation to the car him
self. Statistics were submitted to the
car showing that in ten years 1900
persons, mostly guilty of tuefts of
produce or other comparatively minor
oHenSes, had died after punishment
with tne knOut. Practically, punish
ment with the knout was a sentence
OF death. Though in Russia the rod
and it's equivalents have had a more
extended and bloody existence than
I'M any other European state, it is evil
DENT that the more humane spirit of
the age has been felt. Had not this
been the case the statistics of horrible
meaning which were submitted to the
car with a resultant adjustment OF
the knout would never have been col
lected and presented. 1t is an inter-
esting fact that the world at large
was given to understand as long go
as 1866 that the knout was abolished
for all but the gravest offenses.
A Polish artist named S0chaczWeski,
who was for twenty years in political
exile in Siberia, is now in England,
and has told some interesting facts
concerning the knout and other Incl
dentalS of life TOR death) in Siberia
NJ. SOchacZeWski was a political eX-
lie in Siberia at the age OF u, and
suffered four years and a half in the
mines, during two and a half of
which, he carried, night and day,
nently craven on his ankles. The
former political prisoner is educated
and Intelligent, and speaks without
fear or favor. He tells simply of
what he has seen and known.
The llnOut was in use in the mines
during the whole Of his exile, and he
had many times been a witness OF it's
infiction. Those who were condemn
ed to it suffered in public. The knOut
is not an article which is either suS-
ceptible of or needs a very elaborate
description. \ band of leather serves
the eXecutioner for a handle. and the
knout itself is a single thong of
leather, rough and very hard, taper
ing toward the extremity, where it Is
weighted with a ball of lead. With
this the eXecutioner, who is generally
a reprieved murderer, can infict as
little or as great suffering as he
pleaSeS. Prisoners would sometimes
give the eXccutiOner a 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 a scratch With the same
instrument the eXecutioner could kill
at a single stroke land was occasion
ally bribed to do so by a condemned
prisoner), breaking the ribs and al
most tearing out the heart.
NJ. S0chaczeWSki says that the num-
Der Of strokes which are to be inflicted
on a prisoner is itself of no conse-
quence: for punish mont with the knout
is regarded as sentence of death.
A man under sentence of one hundred
IasheS might die ut the third LASH III
which case the remaining ninety
would be given to the corpse. 1t was
possible, if the eXecutiOner did not
employ his whole art or STRENGTH for
the victim ITO escape death, but he
would then inevitably be a cripple for
the rest of his life. There were men
in the hospital whom the knOut had
MANNED for life.
Nor did the knout exhaust the re-
sources of penal discipline IN Siberia.
There is a whip called the ''plet' that
is scarcely less barbarOuS than the
knout The plet has three tails of
twisted leather, with bits of metal at
the tips. 1t is, perhaps, tritie less
deadly than the knout, but an expert
t1ogger can kill his victim at the fifth
stroke There is a difference in the
logging with the knout and the plet.
The knout. 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 the skin
and bites into the flesh. Providence
Journal.
WOULD MAKE \ HORSE LAUGH.
EnnnN SnNinmS and lncilHnIS Illt