Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-22
IVAN THE TERRIBLE.
Barbaric Gear Who Loved to Burn, Boil
and Torture His Subjects.

From the Chicago News.
Some of the reasons why Ivan car of
Russia, was called 1.-The Terrible" have been
retold by X. WalisZewski in his recent
book Persons who dspleased him he would
saw asunder by the constant rubbing OF a
rope around his waist, or sprinkle alter
nately with ice-cold or boiling water. He
marked his sense of a bad jest by deluglng
| the perpetrator with boiling soup and then
| running him through with a knife. He re-
| buked an unmannerly envoy by summoning
| carpenter and ordering him to nail the
| mans hat on his head. There were also
wholesale orgies, as at the punishment or
Novgorod, when he had a hundred persons
roasted over slow fire by a new and in
genious process and then run down on
sledges into the river to be drowned. At
Moscow the car had a disappointment.
There was to be a great execution of 300
victims, who had already been tortured to
the last extremity, and loyal subjects had
been summoned to the function. To Ivan
establishment the great square was empty.
The instruments of torture stood ready
the stoves and red-hot pincers and iron
claws and needles. the cords, the great cop
pers full of boiling Water-had failed to at
tract this time.
But there had been too much of this sort
| of thing lately, and the executioners were
growing too long armed. Every man sought
! to hide deeper than his neighbor. The car
had to send reassuring messages all over
] the town. Come along! Don't be afraid!
Nobody will be hurtr' At last, out of cell
lars and garrets. the necessary spectators
were tempted forth, and forthwith Ivan, in
exhaustible and quite unabashed, began a
lengthy speech. Could he do less than pun
ish the traitors? But he had promised to
be merciful, and he would keep his word!
Out of the 300 who had been sentenced $50
should have their lives! Torture and exc
cution were, however, in the case of Ivan
very much more than the mere instruments
of barbaric justice. They were his recrea-
ton and delight. AS a boy his amusement
was to throw dogs down from the top Of
one Of the castle terraces and watch their
dying agonies. AS a man he used to go the
round of the torture chamber after dinner.
One of his first crimes was the execution Of
his earliest friend, Feodor Vorontsov; one
of his last was the murder of his own son.
According to WalisZewSki 1t was the rec
ognized thing in Russia for the upper dog
to make things as uncomfortable for the
under dog as knouts and slow fires could
make them. So THE Terrible" only talked
to his subjects in the language they could
most readily understand. Ivan was by no
means unpopular with the people In many
| ways he was enlightened and progressive
monarch. He took the first steps toward
the founding of Russia's great eastern en-
pire; he made more or less successful at
tempts toward political and legal reform,
and he had q certain gift of leadership and
instinct of craftsmanship which he used to
the best advantage. Personally he was a
coward, as was shown at the siege of Ka-
san, when he kept diligently to his devo-
tions in spite of the repeated entreaties of
his men to come and help them.