Another method was to take into service young boys, who soon became lost to society, and lied with effrontery and obstinacy. They had secret methods of communicating with one another, and exhibited a passion for riches, a fact that possibly accounts for their extended influence. The most perfect were those ``worthy of mounting the white horse,'' the ``bearers of the Imperial seal,'' who were deprived of the testicles, penis, and scrotum. The operation of castration among these people was performed at one stroke or at two different times, in the former case one cicatrix being left, and in the latter two. The greater number -- those who had submitted to the ``first purification,'' conferring upon them the ``lesser seal'' -- had lost testicles and scrotum. These people are said to have lost the ``keys of hell,'' but to retain the ``key of the abyss'' (female genitals). As instruments of excision the hot iron, pieces of glass, old wire, sharpened bone, and old razors are used. Only nine fatal cases resulting from the operation are known. At St. Petersburg Liprandi knew a rich Skoptzy who constantly kept girls -- mostly Germans -- for his own gratification, soon after having entered into the ``first purification.'' Few of them were able to remain with him over a year, and they always returned to their homes with health irretrievably lost. Women members of the order do not have their ovaries removed, but mutilation is practiced upon the external genitals, the mammæ, and nipples. The first ablation is obtained by applying fire or caustics to the nipples, the second by amputation of the breasts, one or both, the third by diverse gashes, chiefly across the breast, and the fourth by resection of the nymphæ or of the nymphæ and clitoris, and the superior major labia, the cicatrices of which would deform the vulva. Figure 232 represents the appearance of the external genital organs of a male Skoptzy after mutilation; Figure 233 those of a female. 14.208
Battey 14.209 speaks of Skoptzies in Roumania who numbered at the time of report 533 persons. They came from Russia and practiced the same ceremonies as the heretics there.
Battey 14.209 speaks of Skoptzies in Roumania who numbered at the time of report 533 persons. They came from Russia and practiced the same ceremonies as the heretics there.
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