BARBAROUS MOROCCO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9611, 8 September 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

BARBAROUS MOROCCO.

AN EMPIRE OF ORGANISED ATROCITY. " Although I have travelled in many countries Morocco is the most barbarous country I have ever seen." Such is the verdict of the Earl of Meath, writing in the Nineteenth Century of his recent visit. 44 It is a country where injustice reigns in the place of law." From the late Sultan, who rewarded the man who raised him to the throne by fourteen years' imprisonment without specified cause, down to the humblest soldier who imprisons the most innocent persons for the sake of the fee to be paid on arrest, " officials live on the miseries and sufferings of their fellowcreatures." A MOORISH INFERNO. In a Moorish prison the captives sleep half naked oh the mud floor; they are all huddled together in one' apartment, without distinction as regards crime or innocence, for many are thrown into prison on account of their reputed wealth or prosperity by avaricious officials, who, by prolonged imprisonment and sometimes by torture, hope to squeeze money out of them or discover where they have hidden treasure. Of an evening it is not unusual for the prisoners to be all bound together by a chain passing through an iron collar which each captive wears, thus making it necessary for all to rise or sit, or he down together. Open and uncleansad cesspools within the prison add sometimes to the indescribable horror and misery of the place. There is no inspection, no medical attendance, no alleviation in sickness. . . . When a prisoner is an absolute pauper., and unable to purchase food, the authorities give him daily a small piece of coarse bread, provided by religious endowment, sufficient to prolong the agonies of starvation. DIABOLICAL TORTURES. [ " But the most brutal punishment of all I was meted out in 1892 to the chief rebels in the Angera rising. Those who were caught had. their right hands slashed to the bone at every joint on the inside with a sharp razor. Then salt was rubbed into the wounds, and finally a sharp flint stone was placed in the palm, and the fingers closed tightly over it. Over the hand was then stretched a piece of raw cowhide, which was tied firmly round the wrist. As the cowhide dried it contracted, causing fearful agony. The arms were bound behind the back, so that the sufferer could in no way alleviate his torture. Many of the men went mad or died, and in the case of the sarvivors the hands rotted and dropped off." And for the continuance of these horrors it seems the Christian nations are responsible ! ' "It is international jealousy, suspicion, and fear which prevent the Powers of Europe and America from taking united actiou to .-sweep from the face of the earth this unspeakably barbarous tyranny."