BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 41
" Great God ! " exclaimed the rabbi, casting his eyes upwards, " help me, for Thy name's sake for her sake, for the sake of Thy poor servant, Anna ! "
" Away with him ! " exclaimed the Governor, and the next moment the rabbi, beside himself with grief and terror, was dragged into the street.
CHAPTER VII.
THE KNOUT.
CAPITAL punishment is abolished in Russia, but there are tortures worse than death, and there are deaths from star- vation and cruelty in Russian prisons far more numerous than the decapitations in France and the hangings in En- gland. What English punishments were two hundred years ago Russian tortures are now and worse, and they are conducted with an hypocrisy that is wholly Russian. The truth is, according to more than one historian and commentator, strangulation, crucifixion, the gallows and decapitation were considered too mild for salutary influenc on criminals and political offenders. The Russian legi^ho tors, therefore, invented other deterrent instrumenther's keep the people straight ; the rod, the whip, the kno 1 money the mutilation of the face were introduced, but fre/aste no only as supplementary to the deadly mines of Sibej In the entire language of civilization it is mail that there is no word which conveys an idea of ^ the cruelty, more superhuman suffering, than is conveyeapro- the Russian word, knout. To hear it in Russia is:ere shudder ; and it is all the more terrible that the puni^ed ment of the knout does not necessarily mean death, -r ; the friends of the victim have influence enough or suids. cient money to bribe the executioner to kill the condemrl no
