WHAT PUNISHMENT BY THE KNOUT MEANS.

We read of crimes and cruelties perpetrated in days long, long gone by, and, with a pitying sigh for the wretched sufferers, we thank Heaven that the blessed light of civilization illuminates the nineteenth century. We do not realize that a government, so-called Christian, even to this day, can wantonly cause such heart-rending sufferings as Russia metes out to Poland.

To be exempt from corporal chastisement is one of the privileges of a Russian nobleman; yet this does not prevent the torture being applied to Polish political prisoners even when they are of noble blood.

The subject, albeit a sad one, is not without a certain interest, particularly when we recall the memory of brave men and braver women who have yielded up a weary life while undergoing this, the most cruel of tortures—the knout.

The knout is a strip of hide, a thing which is steeped in some preparation, and strongly glazed, as it were, with metal filings. By this process it becomes both heavy and excessively hard; but before it hardens care is taken to double down the edges, which are left thin, and in this way a groove runs the length of the thong.

The upper part winds around the hand of the executioner; to the other end a small iron hook is fastened. Falling upon the bare back of the sufferer, the knout comes down on its concave side, of which the edges cut like a knife. The thing thus lies in the flesh.

The executioner does not lift it up, but draws it toward him horizontally, so that the hook tears off long strips. If the executioner has not been bribed, the victim loses consciousness after the third stroke, and sometimes dies under the fifth.

The scaffold is an inclined plane, to which the man is tied with his back uncovered. The head and feet are firmly fastened, and the hands, which are knotted together, go round below the plank, any movement of the body becoming impossible.

After receiving the prescribed number of strokes, the poor wretch is untied, and, on his knees, undergoes the cruel punishment of being marked. The letters “Vor”—meaning thief or malefactor—are printed in sharp, pointed letters on a stamp, which the executioner drives into the forehead, and into both cheeks, and, while the blood runs, a black mixture, of which gunpowder is an ingredient, is rubbed into the wounds; they heal, but the bluish scar remains for life.