THE TERRIBLE KNOUT. The Dreadful Punishment of a Murderer in Russia. [CINCINNATI " INQUIRER."]

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 50, 17 May 1884, Page 5

THE TERRIBLE KNOUT. The Dreadful Punishment of a Murderer in Russia. [CINCINNATI " INQUIRER."]

Ma/.ok had murdered a man, a woman, and a little boy. Beforo the magistrate he made a full confession of his guilt. A dotormined attempt was made by the soldiers to mob him while he was making this confession, but it was repressed. Ho was reserved for a much more terrible punishment than that accorded by lynch law. Ho was sentenced to 399 lashes with the knout, which meant to bo knouted to death, unless he possessed superhuman endurance. Ho was marched out to punishment in company with two forgers, all St. Petersburg turning out to witness the spectacle. This horrible show is thus graphically described by the old chronicle :— " The stake prepared for him was a strong block of wood fixed in the ground with three grooves at the top and two rings near the bottom ; the middlo groove was for the neck, and the two others for the armpits, the rings below to lock round the ankles ; about the stakes wore laid coarse skins, especially where the knout-master trod, upon which lay his whips, marking-irons, pincers, etc. An olHcer then read a paper to the people, signifying that forgery upon the Imperial bank being a capital crime, and two of the prisoners convicted of it, were condemned to receive eleven blows with the knout, to have their nostrils pulled out, and to be banished for life to Siberia ; the murderer of so many persons to receivo 399 blows, to be branded three times in the face, have his nostrils pulled out, and (if then alive) bo banished for life to the mines of Siberia. " The executioner and his assistants thon stripped him, tied his hands across, and led him to tho post. After fixing his ankles they bent his neck and arms over it, and drew the rope with which his hands were tied through the ring on the opposite side, which seemed to stretch all tho muscles of the back. He then retired about four or five yards from him, and, taking up one of the knouts, worked it with hi& hands to give it a proper elasticity. Walking towards the criminal with four or five steady steps, then taking a spring he struck a perpendicular stroke with a heavy, loud crack. The first stroke cut from the right side of the bottom of the neck to the left armpit. The efl'oct was visible in a moment, and by the violence of his screams afforded reason to supposo that the pain was very great. The second was about half an inch below the first, and so on till twenty-five, when, changing the whip, the operator erased the former wound, striking from the left side to the right, and afterward quite perpendicular. The strokes were given with the greatest regularity. Between each a person migUt deliberately count eight, the executioner always walking slowly to and from tho stake. 1 ' His cries were now so terrible that some of the spectators were obliged to turn their backs and put their fingers in their ears. All was quiet and silent, and tho crack of the knout was heard a great distance. After receiving three hundred lashes the culprit's voico grew faint, and during tke last one hundred he showed no signs of life whatever, the whole of tho upper part of the back being beaten to a black mummy. After the last blow the assistants lifted up tho face by the hair, and the executioner struck him forcibly three times vith an instrument that left the initial of murderer, throwing each timo a handful of black dust into the wound ; after which, at two pulls, he tore the gristle of his nose, and loosened him from the block. Tho whole lasted about threoquarters of an hour, and it was genorally thought that he had been dead some time ; however, he made a feoble attempt to put on his coat, and recovered sufficiently to be able to make some reparation to society by working the iron mines."