Peter Shimchak, a peasant from the province of Warsaw, who fled from German captivity, being examined on oath, deposed to the following:--In August I was made prisoner while serving as a sailor on board a vessel under the British flag, going from Denmark to England. As a Russian subject I was not set free, but was placed in solitary confinement for seven days in a prison at Hamburg, and then sent to a camp for prisoners of war near Berlin, at Zel, where there were already many English, French, and Belgian prisoners. In that camp there was a small yard where offending prisoners were generally punished. On one occasion four Cossacks were brought into the camp. I recognised them by the yellow stripes down the sides of their trousers. They were taken out into the yard and placed about ten feet from the wall of the barrack, and through the crevices I was able to watch the proceedings. They took the first Cossack and placed his left hand on a small wooden post or block, and with a sword bayonet one of the German soldiers chopped off successively half of the Cossack’s thumb, half of his middle finger and half of his little finger. I could plainly see how these finger pieces flew off at each stroke of the sword-bayonet and fell to the ground. The Germans picked them up and put them into the pocket of the Cossack’s overcoat and then took him into a barrack, where there was a reservoir of running water. The second Cossack was brought up and had holes drilled through his ears, the point of the sword-bayonet being turned in the cut several times in order, evidently, to make the hole as large as possible. This Cossack was then led away to the barrack where the first one had been taken. When the third Cossack was brought to the place of torture his nose was chopped off by a downward stroke of a sword bayonet, but as the severed piece of nose was still hanging by a bit of skin, the Cossack made signs that they should cut it off completely. The Germans then gave him a pocket knife, and with this the Cossack cut off the hanging piece of his nose. Finally, the fourth Cossack was brought forward. What they intended to do with him it was impossible to say, but this Cossack with a rapid movement drew out the bayonet of the nearest soldier and dealt a blow with it at one of the Germans. There were about fifteen German soldiers present, and they all set upon this Cossack and bayoneted him to death, after which they dragged the body outside the camp. What was the fate of the remaining three Cossacks I do not know, but I think, says the witness Shimchak, in concluding his account of the case, they must have been also killed, for I never saw them again. IX.