master[1] feel, if the slight lapses from duty, of which he, as every man, before God is guilty, were as severely visited?
This, however, was a light punishment, compared with the terrible one of the knout, to which the Russian slaves who are guilty of weightier offences, such as crimes, are subjected. One hundred to one hundred and twenty strokes of this terrible instrument are considered equivalent to death! indeed, it is often more dreaded than death itself, so that a criminal has been known to bribe the executioner to kill him instead. Howard, the philanthropist, while in Russia, witnessed this painful punishment, and thus describes it: — "The knout-whip is fixed to a wooden handle, a foot long, and consists of several thongs about two feet in length, twisted together 3 to the end of which is fastened a single tough thong of a foot and a half, and capable of being changed by the executioner, when too much softened by the blood of the criminal. I saw two criminals," he says, "a man and a woman, suffer the punishment of the knout. They were conducted from prison by about fifteen hussars and ten soldiers. When they arrived at the place of punishment, the hussars formed themselves into a ring round the whipping-post — the drum beat a minute or two — and then some prayers were read, the populace taking off their hats. The woman was taken first; and after being roughly stripped to the waist, her hands and feet were bound with cords to a post made for the purpose, a man standing before the post, and holding the cords
- ↑ The Emperor, here referred to, was not the present Emperor, but Nicholas.
