THE TORTURE IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4589, 4 December 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE TORTURE IN RUSSIA.

A remarkable case of judicial torture,is reported from' Hapsal, a favorite seaside resort near Revel, which has greatly excited the Russian public, and has again brought up the separate rights in the Baltic provinces, to prove the necessity for a speedy introduction of judicial reform. Some months ago the Town Hall at Hapsal was entered in the night, and a box broxen open, from which was stolen fnoney of the city, amounting to 20,000 roubles, and an. almost equal sura belonging to the burgomaster and to one Magnus Kummel, the secretary of the magistracy. As iu the Baltic provinces the investigation of crimes rests entirely with the police, and as Kummel, besides being the secretary of the magistrates, was also acting as police master, be had in his own hands the task of finding those who had stolen his money. Spurred on by his personal losses, he entered with zest on his duties, and arrested right and left everybody on whom was cast the slightest suspicion of talcing the cash, of keeping it, or of knowing by whom it had been stolen. The repose of the bathers and other visitors at Hapsal soon began to be disturbed at flight by groans and cries issuing from the Town Hall, apparently from pel-sons being wbipped.br tortured. A complaint was made, and an investigation was had, by a German official from Revel, but nothing was brought to light, Subsequently, however, Nero, one. of the prisoners, died, and the magistrate reported that death resulted from apoplexy; hut the city physician, on examination, discovered that he had been strangled or choked, ; and that his back was covered with a'mass of bruises and ulcers. As public runior insisted that Nero had died during torture —which seems to be true, a man having sat on his head to keep him still while he was being whipped—another investigation was made, and the most cruel practices were disclosed. Not content with flogging the per*' sons whom he had arrested in the prisons of the Town Hall, in order to extort confessions from them, Kummel had even taken a man named Grunthall to the cemetery, and, together . with the rathsherr, had flogged’ him severely on his mother’s grave with shoots cut from the nearest shrubs, hoping for a confession that he had 1 hidden the money somewhere in the graveyard. This same Grunthall, whose back was found tattooed with putrid ulcere, was fastened to the wall for several weeks by an iron chain, which was so short that he could not lie dawn without his hands being strained above him. Another victim, named Rosenberg, had been subjected to a sort of thumb-' screw, and was besides hung up by his hands for a whole night. The wife of Rosenberg, although in a condition that should have saved her from molestation, was grievously tortured. Other prisoners received no food or drink for two or three days at a time.