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COXE’s TRAVELS IN RUSSIA, 807
of this falutary terror withdraws a material fafeguard from the lives and property of
worthy citizens, and diminifhes that fecurity which they have a right to claim from the
protection of the laws.
The moft benevolent perfon will probably entertain no extraordinary veneration for
this boafted abolition of capital punifhment, when he reflects, that though the criminal
laws of Ruffia do not /iterally fentence malefactors to death, they {till confign many to
that doom through the medium of punifhments in fome circumftances, almolt afluredly,
if not profefledly, fatal, which mock with the hopes of life, but in reality protract the
horrors of death, and embitter with delay an event which reafon and humanity with to
be inftantaneous. For when we confider that many felons expire under the infliction,
or from the confequences of the knoot; that feveral are exhaulted by the fatigue of
the long journey to Nerfhinfk *, and that the forlorn remnant perifh prematurely from
the unwholefomenefs of the mines, it will be difficult to view the doom of thefe unhappy
outcafts in any other light than that of a lingering execution. In effeét, fince the pro-
mulgation of the edict, a year has never paffed in which many atrocious criminals, though
legally condemned to other penalties, have not fuffered death. And indeed, upon a
general calculation, perhaps it will be found, that notwithftanding the apparent mildnefs
of the penal code, not fewer malefactors fuffer death in Ruffia, than in thofe countries
wherein that mode of punifhment is appointed by the laws. It.is therefore evident,
that capital penalties are virtually retained, although the chief utility refulting from the
terror of death is confiderably diminithed.
The_panegyrilts of Elizabeth would have entertained fome doubts concerning her
boafted clemency, had they recollected that the ftill retained a horrid procefs for the
purpofe of extorting confeffion from perfons charged with treafonable defigns. The
arms of the fufpected perfon being tied behind by a rope, he was drawn up to acon-
fiderable height; from whence, being fuddenly precipitated and fuddenly checked, the
violence of the concuffion diflocated his fhoulders, and in that deplorable fituation he
underwent the knoot. To this dreadful engine of barbarity and defpotifm, Elizabeth
gave unlimited fcope: during her whole reign it was applied even at the difcretion of
inferior and ignorant magiftrates, and was not abolifhed until the acceffion of Catharine,
who has prohibited the ufe of torture.
Although the fovereign is abfolute in the moft unlimited fenfe of the word; yet the
prejudice of the Ruffians in regard to the neceflity of torture (and a wife legiflator will
always refpect popular prejudices, however abfurd,) was fo deeply rooted by immemo-
rial ufage, that it required great circumf{pection not to raife difcontents by an immediate
abolition of that inhuman practice. Accordingly, the cautious manner in which it was
gradually fupprefled, difcovered as much judgment as benevolence. In 1762, Catha-
rine took away the power of inflicting torture from the vayvodes, or inferior juttices,
by whom it had been fhamefully abufed. In 1767, a fecret order was iffued to the
judges, that whenever they fhould think torture neceflary to force confeffion, they
fhould lay the general articles of the charge before the governor of the province for his
confideration ; and all the governors had received previous direftions to determine the
cafe according to the principles laid down in the third t queftion of the tenth chapter of
inftructions for a code of laws; wherein torture is proved to be no lefs ufelefs than
cruel. ‘This, therefore, was a tacit abolition of torture, which has been fince formally
* Four thoufand feven hundred and feventy-fix miles from Peterfburgh.
+ Queftion III. “ La gueflion ne blefe-t-elle pas la ju/tice, et conduit-elie au but, &c.”? See Inftru€tions de
Catharine II., &c, p. 51 to 55. “84
and
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