COUNT TOLSTOI'S NEW BOOK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1130, 27 October 1893, Page 11

COUNT TOLSTOI'S NEW BOOK.

A STORY OF RUSSIAN CRUELTY.

Count Tolstoi has completed his new book, • The Kingdom of God within Us.' It is said to be written in 'a plainer and more outspoken style ' than any of his previous works, and its publication in Russia is likely to be forbidden. The Daily Chronicle, however, brlieves that arrangements have been made for an English translation, and meantime their correspondent at St Petersburg (who has seen the Count's manuscript) supplies us with an extract from the twelfth and final chapter of the volume. The author gives an account of the way in which ' justice' was administered to some refractory peasants in the Orloff Government in the early part of last year. It is not, says the Count, an exceptional case, and for the truth of the incidents he can vouch. We make the following extracts from the translation furnished by the correspondent ; The troops were drawn up before the door of the district court of justice; a body of policemen, with new red belts from which hung loaded revolvers, stood marshalled in order around the small band of guilty peasants awaiting the just punishment; of their crime. On arriving at the district court the Governor-General .alighted from his carriage and delivered a short and touching speech, after which he ordered a bench to be brought. The police officer whose special, function it was to see that punishments were duly and orderly administered, curtly explained that his Excellency wanted a whipping bench to be brought. When all was ready the governor general ordered the first of the twelve peasants, whom the proprietor had denounced as being the ringleaders of revolt, to be led forward.

The first of the victims was the father of a family, a man abeut forty years of age, whose probity had become proverbial, and who enjoyed the trust and esteem of his fellow villages. He was ordered to strip, and to take his place on the bench. The peasant did not care to ask for mercy; he knew that all such prayers were vain; he therefore silently crossed' himself and lay down. The bench, however, proved too small, and it was difficult to steady the writhing, tortured creature. So the Governor General ordered another bench to be fetched,, and a plank to be fixed on either side. In the meantime the half-stripped, poor; mutilated creature remained with scowling brows, eyes cast down, his lower jaw quivering, and his bare legs trembling. When the second bench had been brought he was once more bound down, and the convicts (who acted as the floggers) resumed their work. The back, sides, and legs of the tortured creature were streaming with blood, and after each heavy blow the sufferer gave forth a dull groan, which he tried in vain to repress. And from the crowd that stood around could be heard the sob-bings-of wives, mothers, children, and relatives of the dear tortured one, and the frightened half-cries of those who were awaiting their turn. When more than fifty blows had been given, the peasant ceased to groan or stir, and the doctor, who had placed his services and wisdom at the disposal of the provincial Government hospital, came up to the... ..tortured creature, felt his pulse, bent down to listen if the' heart still beat, and informed the representative of imperial authority that the victim was unconscious, and that further punishment would be dangerous to his life. But the unhappy Governor-General,, more drunk than ever with his brief authority, became savage at the sight of blood, ordered the punishment to proceed; and the torturing process went on till the seventieth blow had been struck—seventy seeming to be for some unknown reason the sacred number, below which it were an affront to justice to stop—and then, taking his cigarette from his mouth, he quietly said, ' Enough ! bring forward the next.'