The Warwickshire Herald. — 1899-04-06 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

COUNT LEO TOYSTOI  FLOGGING IN RUSSIA. At the present moment, when the Czar's letter to the waple of Wig country in connection with the Peace Crusade Is the subject of much conversation, a short article by Count Leo Tolstoi. bearing the title -Shaine!" will be read with interest. The question treate i rf is the flagging of grown-up . . .  Russian peasants for trivial offences. Seventy-live yams ago. says Count Tolstoi, the Semenoff Regiment decided not 0 use corporal punishment in the regiment, and in el its ot the stringent discipline then required it continued to be a model reginient. Nowadays the grandsons of these mon, who co .sidered corporal punishment a shameful relic of herbal ism. take their seats as magistrates at sessions, and calmly discuss the q mstion whether such and such a full-grown man (often the father of a family, or sometimes even a grandfather should or should not he flogged. . . .  • Evidently a geest c iange has occurred in what we call the educated upper clamant. The men of the 'twenties, considering the intliAion of corporal punishment to be disgiaceful to themselves, were able to eet rid ot it even in the military service. where it was deemed imispensable. but the men of our day calmly apply it., solitecs only, but to any man of one special class of the Russian people, an I cautiously, dploinet c illy, in their committees and aeiemblies. draw up addresses and petitions to the GOVellh”eet, with all worts of reservations and circurntocutions, saying that there are hygienic objections to punishment by Noeg ng, and therefore its use shou it be limited; or that it would he desirable only to flog those peasants who have not gone through a certain school course; or not to flog peasants referred to in the manifesto issued on the occasion of the Cull's marriage. While the upper, governing classes have sunk to a plain) so coarse and morally degraded thie ihey have legalised flogging, and can calmly discuss it, the mental and moral plane of the peasant clads has so risen that corporal punishment has become for them not only a physical but also a moral tor ure. I have heard and read of cases of suicide committed by peasants sentenced to be forget, and I cannot doubt that such eases occur, for I have myself seen a most ordinary young peasant turn wilt, as a sheet :out lose control of his voice at the mere mention, in the District Come, of the possibility of it bring b dieted cn him. I have seen how another peasant, foiey years old, who had been condemned to corporal punishment, wept, when in reply to my inquiry whetter the sentence had been executed lie haat to reply that it had been. I know, too, the case of a respected elderly peasant of my acquaintance who was sentenced to flogging treatise he had quarrelled with the Reeve (Sbirostal„ not noticing that the Reeve was wearing his ba 'ge of office. The man was brought to the District Court, and trom there to the shed in which the punishment is usually inflicted. The watchman came with the rods, and the peasant was told to strip. "Parmen E mil ' item you know I have a married son," said the peasant, addressing tie Elder (Starshins), and trembling all over. "Can't this he avoided? You know it's a sin." "It's the authorities, Petrovich. I should tie glad inough myself but there's no help for it," replied the Elder,at Petrovitch undressed ant lay &nett. • •`,'`i"a. suffered, and told us to," said he. The clerk, an eye-witness. ti Id me the story, anti said that every man's hand trembled. and none of t one present could look into each other's eyes, feelits.: that ehey were doing something dreadful. And these are tire people whom it is considered neci sear,— and probably for some reason advantageous—to neat with rods like apimals—ttough it is forbidden to torture even animals. If one has to speak of corporal punishment inflicted on the peasant class alone, the needful thing is—not to defend the rights of the local government, or ate cal from a Governor (who has veined a petition to mxi mpt literate peasants Ii Sm fit ging) to a Minister, and front the %. Mister to tie Si nate, and from the Senate to the Env *Ter—, s was propoeed my the Tamboff Local A semi tic—hut one must unceasingly proclaim, and cry aloud, that such appli ations of a I ruts' punisiiii ent (already a andoned for childrep) to one—and that the best— class ol It, miens is diseracei ul to all who, directly or indirectly, partirip te in it. What terrible moral perversion must east in the minds and hearts of ti one—olten the yeuni—who, with an air of profound practical wisdom, say as I have myself heard said) that it won't do not to flog peasants, and that it is Letter for the i issants themselves to be flogged!