Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/295

 on holidays, but in some large and well-known place in the city, where they can be seen and heard by a great number whom they muster round them together by hisses or some other signal. When they are assembled, they run towards each other and wrestle; they then engage in boxing matches, and afterwards promiscuously kick each other with great force with their feet on the face, throat, breast, and belly, etc., or in any other way they can, they throw each other down, struggling for conquest, so that they are often carried away lifeless. He then who conquers the greatest number, stays longest on the field, and endures blows with the greatest fortitude, receives the highest praises, and is accounted a distinguished conqueror. This kind of contest was instituted in order that young men might be able to sustain blows and to endure strokes of any kind.

Justice is carried out very strictly against thieves; when they are caught, the order is, that they shall first have their heels broken, and then rest two or three days while they swell, and then while they are yet broken and swollen they make them walk again. They employ no other method of torturing malefactors to confess robberies or to inform against their accomplices. But if a man, when brought up for examination, be found to deserve death, he is hanged. Criminals are seldom punished with any other kind of punishment, unless they have committed some uncommonly heinous crime. Thefts, and even murders, unless they have been committed for the sake of gain, are seldom visited with capital punishment. If, indeed, a man catch a thief in the act and kill him, he can do so with impunity, always provided however that he bring the man that he has killed to the prince's palace, and explain how the matter occurred.

Few magistrates have authority to inflict capital punish-