RUSSIAN BARBARITY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), 15 February 1883, Page 3

RUSSIAN BARBARITY.

When a convict is to be severely flogged in. Siberia lie is taken into the court-yard and stripped to the waist. Then each hand and arm is lashed to a reversed musket. A

soldier takes hold of the stock of cither musket, bringing it close up under his armpit. In tin's manner the convict is drugged along at the will of the soldiers, slow or fast as they may be inclined, and is at the same time compelled to stand lightly bent over. All the soldiers of the garrison are then made to march out and take their places in two single files, stretching across the court-yard, and two or three feet apart. Each man is armed with a stout stick. Adowu this "green street," between the two files of soldiers, the unfortunate victim is compelled to slowly march, while every man strikes him a sounding blow on the back with his stick, and it is as much asany soldier's life is worth to miss his blow. It is simply a fiendish punishment. With" the first few blows the _ agony is terrible, and the poor unfortunate's shrieks and groans rend the air. After a while all sensation is deadened, and the man passes feeling the blows that are rained upon him ; finally, unable to bear up under the horrible infliction, nature succumbs, and the half senseless victim is dragged along the course by the soldiers holding the muskets, and the blows are steadily showered upon the unresisting form. Not unfrequentiy the man is dead before he reaches tho end of the line, and the blows are simply piled upon the senseless, inanimate form. Two thousand strokes of tho "pelt," as it is called, are about all that tho ordinaiy man can endure, and yet sentences of 3000 4000, 5000 and even 6000 strokes are sometimes given. The last named amount is simply a sentence to slow and agonizing death" and is so understood. A few instances have been known of men who have received 4000 and 5000 strokes and came out alive, but generally it was only to suffer a few days longer in the hospital and then pass away. When a victim has been flogged his full sentence, or sometimes when the doctors apprise the executioners that death is impending, the man is turned over to the care of the hospital. There a wet sheet is tin-own over his bruised back, and he strides back and forth, muttering curses. >:>r lies motionloss on a couch groaning in agony, accordingly as he has been severely or lightly punished. The first course of treatment when the doctors got around to the patientis to pick out the splinters of wood that have been beaten into the quivering fie-h. In the raw, bleeding condition of the back this is the most c'xqiiisite aguny doubly refined and causes almost as much, suffering as tlie beating. A man who has once been flogged never forgets it. Not only docs he carry the marks of terrible castigation on bis back for ever, but for years internal pains rack him day and night and ho suiters nil tlie agony of the damned. Let anything occur to" recall the remembrance of the punishment and the man becomes a savage at once. Some will rave and foam at the recollections and utter the most horrible imprecations at their oppressors, while others will show by the ghastly pale hue of the face with its rigid, tense look, and by the demoniacal light' that flashes from their eyes, that the remembrances still rankle in their hearts.Boston Commercial Bulletin.