A HAPPY RELEASE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 198, 25 September 1909, Page 4

A HAPPY RELEASE.

MULAI HAFID'S CRUELTIES. Fearful stories of the cruelties practised by Mulai Hand, the Sultan of Morocco, have been related by persoas who have been in Fez. During the present year the Sultan's elder brother, Mulai Mohammed, who had been passed over by his father as his successor, raised the standards o' revolt against Mulai Hafid. He was captured, loaded with rusty chains, and brought to Fez, where, after a stormy interview with the Sultan, he was sera no more. It is supposed that he was poisoned. The fate of hie followers has been more terrible. They have been so cruelly tortured that the British Consul, Mr. 1!. Lister, felt it his duty to protest. The Standard's correspondent at Fez has given details of the punishments inflicted. He 6ays that Mulai Hafid ordered the right hand of each man and woman among the prisoners to be cut off and the stumps to be plunged in boiling pitch. Two important prisoners were ordered to lose their right hands and right feet and to Eavc their teeth drawn. Another correspondent declares that one unfortunate wretch was ordered to have his lower jaw shattered by the blow of a hammer, another to have hie eyes gouged out, and a third to have the palm of his hands slashed with a razor, salted, and sewn up in a leather glove, so that when the wounds healed the fingers would grow into the palm and the hand become a useless stump. The darker side of life at the Moorish Court is graphically presented in an article in the July number of the Na j tional Review. The writer, after referring to the Tevival. of the poison cup, under the fanatical and cruel Hub.; Hafid, and to the rumored fate of Be i Sliman, a former Foreign Minister, who came to Fez to look for employment. and of Mulai Mohammed, proceeds to describe one of the incidents referred to in cable messages. "Of the followers of Mulai Mohammed.' he writes, "some were imprisoned an.l others put to the torture. Sad was the fate of a local preacher who had the audacity and indiscretion to write in his favor. One fine day, as the troops were being drilled and the bands were playing, and the Consuls and visitors were awaiting their audiences, the proiagandist was brought up for trial a-id for punishment. Hafid, wishing to sha-e----the responsibility with the proper authorities, handed him over to fie Ouelama, or Sacred College, who. "being very much afraid of the Sultan, were not long in giving judgment. The unfortunate man was sentenced to have the palm 6 of his hands eut open, filled with salt, and otherwise treated as described above.

"The Sultan sits cross-legged on a y >ilow sofa in his green summer-houi"'; around him arc ranged the judges who had pronounced sentence; on the grouad at the foot of the steps of the snmm«rhouse lies the preacher, who Ba3 be;n found guilty, held down by four soldiers. Kneeling over the prostrate form is the executioner with his knife; an assistant stands ready with his bag of salt; and close at hand is one of "the most respected saddlers in Fez, carrying a piece of leather, a needle and thread" ready to sew up the offending hand 3 Cries of 'Ya Sidi! Ya Sidi!' come from miserable wretches who are trying to attract the Sultan's attention. Seated up against the wall are the Ministers, some chatting, some writing, others peacefully asleep. The troops fill the square, and in half-a-dozen places little groups of men, gathered round a pros trate form, are bney administering the morning's floggings.' Mules and horses gallop wildly about the square and break in the ranks. High above the sonnd of the floggings the cries of the victims and the shouts of 'Ya Sidi! Ya [Sidi!' there sounds incessantly the discordant opening bars of The Briti'h Grenadiers, 'The Cock of the North,' and fThe Marseillaise.'"