Old World Trials. certain information of his fate reaches him. The intelligence comes at break of clay, and fifteen minutes before the moment of sunrise, which is generally appointed for the execution, the knout, or the start for Sibe ria. The governor enters the cell, and makes the announcement, and from the in stant everything is done with the greatest celerity. If it is death, the chaplain presses the wine on the unhappy man, and three minutes arc allowed for the shrift. Then the ispravnik takes him in hand, and he is half conducted, half pushed into the open court, where at once the execution follows. Is it the knout? With the same expedition the man is led forth, and the gendarmes bare his back. The instrument of torture is a whip of seven strands, and each strand loaded with sharp nails and pieces of jagged metal. While two gendarmes pinion ' the prisoner to rings fixed in the prison wall, a third brings out the knout, and at a signal from his fellows proceeds to the infliction. It is a horrible punishment, but there is not a man but prefers it to exile, knowing full well that in Siberia it will be the incident of every day. He may faint at execution, and shriek when led to the chains of the far Northeast, but at sight of the knout he smiles. Men have been known to suffer it time and again, and there is nothing more inhuman.
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But, actually, from the Christian point of view, the entire procedure of trial, inter regnum, and sentence is inhumanity intense. Nothing can be more deplorable than for a convict to be given no opportunity to pre pare for punishment. Even the chaplain lies to the prisoner systematically, by hold ing out hopes of a pardon that he knows im possible. The convict finishes his jail career in a fool's paradise. He is given all the food and tobacco he wants, and a quart of wine a day. His warders play cards with him as much as he likes, and he lives a silly existence. Suddenly, death, — and that is all. Are the sentences just? We cannot answer at our distance. At the least, let us be glad that the czar decrees the abolition of the use of the knout. It may mean something worse in punishment, perhaps, but it is good news that it is to go. After this there are other reforms to come, — the lightening of the chains for Siberia, the lessening of the horrors of the mines, and a change of capi tal punishment. They may ensue. As for the court, it is generally held that it cannot be improved, and in many of the proceedings it is to be preferred to the courts of other European countries. It is admirably adapted to Russia, and shows ad vantageously when compared with other courts. Gifford Knox.
OLD WORLD
TRIALS.
XI. THE STORY OF GABRIEL MALAGRIDA. GABRIEL MALAGRIDA was one of the strangest products of Jesuitism. Born at Mercajo near Milan in 1689, he was admitted into the Society of Jesus at the age of twenty-two, and some years afterwards set out as a missionary to Brazil, where he devoted himself to the task of converting the Indian
tribes. At this period of his career he gave evidence of a spirit of fanaticism closely bordering on insanity. But he also did ex cellent religious and social work among the savage races with which he was brought into contact. In 1754, he crossed to Lisbon to become
