Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

The punishment of death does not exist in this land, except for the crime of high treason; but there are certain criminals whom they nevertheless kill. The way in which they reconcile the mildness of the code with the traditional ferocity of manners is this: when a criminal is condemned to more than a hundred strokes of the knout, the executioner, who understands the meaning of such a sentence, kills him through humanity, by striking him at the third blow on a mortal part. And yet the punishment of death is abolished ! To making the law thus lie, the proclamation of the most audacious tyranny would be preferable.

If it is thought that I judge Russia too severely, I must plead the involuntary impression that I receive each day from persons and from things, and which every friend of humanity would receive in my place, if like me, he endeavoured to look beyond that which would be shown him.

This empire, immense as it is, is no more than a prison, of which the emperor keeps the key. Nothing can exceed the misery of the subjects unless it be that of the prince. The life of the gaoler has always appeared to me so similar to that of the prisoner, that I am astonished at the mental illusion which makes the one believe himself so much less to be pitied than the other.

Man here knows neither the real social enjoyments of cultivated minds, nor the absolute and animal liberty of the savage, nor yet the independence of action of the half-savage — the barbarian; I can see no compensation for the misery of being born under this system, except the dreams of vanity and the