law is sometimes evaded in practice. The knout is inflicted, excepting on nobles, for all grave offences; in cases of murder or other heinous crimes, "without mercy" is marked on the sentence, and in this case the punishment is often death, although more than twenty-five cuts cannot be inflicted. It is said that there are executioners so terribly skilful, that in three cuts of the knout they can destroy life.

Nothing surely can be said in defence of a system which thus inflicts a death of torture without the sanction of law, but by a subterfuge; and as if it were an accident. Such a system exactly opposes itself to the only sound principle of penal legislation, namely, that the punishment should be so contrived as to strike the greatest possible terror into others, at the expense of the smallest possible amount of suffering to the criminal himself; here, on the contrary, legal punishment is degraded into revenge.

In the martial law of Russia a similar practice exists, though I am not sure that capital punishment is altogether excluded from the code even in time of peace. A soldier was lately tried at a garrison in this province for running his officer through with a bayonet. The sentence was, that he should run the gauntlet four times through a thousand men, without going to the hospital. The addition of this last clause implied that the soldier was to be flogged to death. In ordinary cases such a punishment is inflicted at different times, the culprit being sent in

the intervals to the hospital, and a surgeon being at each time in attendance to see that his life is not endangered. The compelling a man to run the gauntlet is, I believe, not an unusual punishment in the Russian army. The troops form a lane, up which the criminal passes, with a soldier before and another behind him to regulate his march. Each man in the line is armed with a stick, with which he is obliged to give the prisoner a blow as he passes, under penalty of severe punishment himself if he neglects to do so. When a prisoner who is not go to the hospital can no longer walk, he is placed on a cart, and the punishment is continued till he dies, for it is hardly possible that he can survive till its completion.

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A most erroneous part of the Russian penal system appears to be that of sentencing civil offenders of all kinds to serve as soldiers. If a steward cheats, or a servant robs his master, he is made a soldier; if a coachman drives over a person in the street, he is seized by the police and made a soldier ; and if his master embezzles money, or takes a bribe, and is detected, he also is made a soldier.

*

It is the great object of the Russian government to encourage and uphold the army; yet its ranks are

* The law in this case is most severe, and often extremely oppressive and unjust. If a carriage is driven over any person and hurts him, whatever may be the merits of the case, the horses are forfeited to the Crown, and the coachman, if a Russian peasant, is sentenced to be a soldier.

daily swelled with thieves, vagabonds and drunkards; the soldiers can feel little respect for themselves, and their respect for their officers must be diminished, when the general who commands them today, may, for some breach of duty or disobedience to his superior, bear a musket in the ranks tomorrow. An occurrence of this sort, though naturally not very common, is by no means unheard of.

Some years ago a general who was in high favour with the Emperor, and who held an office of importance, received an an Ukase or Imperial order which nearly affected an intimate friend. From a regard to his friend, instead of executing the Ukase, he put it in his pocket, and allowed a month to pass without taking the steps which his duty required. For this offence he was tried and found guilty, and the following sentence was pronounced and executed :—he was brought in full uniform, with his stars and other decorations, into a room where the ordinary business (as I described it in my last letter) of receiving conscripts was going on. He was then stripped; put, according to the usual form, under the standard; his height noted down; his forehead ordered to be shaved, and he was taken out of the room a common soldier, and I believe sent to Siberia.

Those who are thus condemned to serve as soldiers are not altogether placed on the same footing as the ordinary conscripts; they are not entitled to their

discharge at the end of twenty-five years, and they are, if their offences have been serious, sent into a penal corps; but still, to be made a soldier generally implies disgrace and punishment; and it may be doubtful whether, with an army constituted as this is, much reliance could be placed on its zeal and fidelity in the case of internal disturbances.

The national disgrace of Russia appears to be the system of corruption which it is said pervades every class in the empire, high and low. This accusation is, I am afraid, undeniable; for every Russian will tell you, "there is nothing to be done in our country without a bribe." The only difference appears to be in the amount, which, of course, varies with the rank of the receiver. At the bottom of the ladder, three or four roubles may suffice, while as many thousands may be requisite for the important personage at the top.

No one will be unjust enough to suppose that honest men are not to be found here as well as in other countries, and I should be sorry so far to calumniate Russia as to suggest that they were rare ; but still from all that I have heard in various quarters, I cannot doubt of the lamentable prevalence of corruption. The fact of a person in a high and honourable employment, receiving money for his good offices, does not seem to be regarded here with all the horror and detestation which it de

serves.

The salary of a governor of a province is twelve thousand roubles a-year, or about five hundred pounds, a sum which is quite insufficient to cover the expences of his establishment; yet I was told the other day that a governor of Saratoff, on the Volga, one of the richest provinces in Russia, retired some years ago, after holding the office for six years, with a capital, realized during that time, of three millions of roubles, about a hundred and twenty thousand pounds. I inquired how this was possible, and the following is, in substance, the explanation which I received.

This upright Governor never committed acts of private injustice or wrong; but for value received, he consented to shut his eyes and not interfere with the doings of others. He, in fact, sold his protection wholesale to those who made their own profit by retailing their good offices as required.

In each of the twelve districts of every government is an ispravnik, an officer whom I have already mentioned as a rural master of police. Each ispravnik paid his Excellency five thousand roubles a-year, a douceur which of course obliterated any little peccadilloes of his own, or any mistakes into which he might fall in administering justice.

The Bashkirs, and other wild tribes who dwell in the Steppes beyond the Volga, wished to remain in undisturbed possession of lands to which they had no very strict title: the Governor left them in repose,