ANECDOTES OF RUSSIA. BEFORE I enter into a description of the interior arrangements of Russian prisons, it will be as well to examine the laws, by the administration of which these dreary abodes become tenanted. I am aware that on entering upon this subject I shall have many difficulties to encounter; for from conversation alone can any just idea of the mode of obtaining impartial justice in Russia be formed. Of course, should you happen to consult a man attached to the Court, or rather the Emperor, you will receive a description of the law and of justice calculated to establish a belief that Russia is really a free-country; that from one court you can apply to another to examine the sentence; that, after various re-examinations, it can be brought before the Emperor for his decision. We have been told by a late writer, who has embraced in his volumes every situation in which a Russian can be placed, that in 1826, 2,850,000 causes had come before the different tribunals of the empire, and that the Emperor, not satisfied with the ordinary routine of affairs, having the good and the happiness of his people in view, has traced out to himself other tasks and other duties. The additional burthen which he has imposed upon himself is, that of looking over the reports of every arrest and imprisonment within his empire, the state of the prisons, and the character of the prisoners. However laudable this may be, and however much the Emperor might wish to fulfil the arduous undertaking, we know that it is impossible to be done to the extent mentioned; for the Emperor would have, by this calculation, no less than five cases to be examined in every minute, night and day, throughout the year; and it is farther advanced that the Emperor, judging from the exercise of this laudable burthen, "has frequently given orders for bringing persons to a speedy trial who had been long in prison." I shall mention, in the following pages, the general fallacy of this position, as I have seen and conversed with people in the prisons who have inhabited their narrow cells for eighteen months without being brought to trial; and others who have been released at the expiration of two years without being tried at all, or of being aware for what they were confined. In criminal cases, a man may pass through four courts before he is condemned: a tribunal d'Enquête, or police-office, (very different, indeed, from our police offices;) a Tribunal de Première Instance; a Court of Appeal; and, lastly, one of Cassation."+ Now it by no means follows that, because these four courts exist, a poor man will be enabled to receive any benefit from them; for law and justice are in Russia distributed exactly in the ratio of the rubles paid as bribes to Judges. The Empress Catherine endeavoured to establish a code of laws, which her successors have endeavoured, with more effect, to destroy. Every ukase which is issued becomes a law, and sometimes these miserable mandates are issued on the most trivial and silly occasions. For instance, in the reign of that madman Paul, when the son of an English merchant appeared in the streets of Petersburgh with a hunting-cap on his head, "an ukase was promulgated, that the Emperor ordained that no person should appear in public with the thing on his Continued from p. 420. + Granville. head worn by the merchant's son.'"* Another ukase from the same tyrant mentioned the colour of the sand to be used in winter in the streets of the capital, it being a law that every man must have the pavement in front of his house cleared of the snow, and sprinkled with sand, before seven o'clock in the morning. And although in the reign of Elizabeth the punishment of death was abolished in Russia, the present Emperor has shown, in some dozen cases, that he is superior to that law, for the hangman had some employment after his coronation. Elizabeth herself broke this law, and the Neva could tell many a mournful tale from the reign of Catherine. But in the case of the present Emperor, the criminals were condemned to death in plain terms, and five were executed-hung on the walls of the fortress of St. Petersburgh.+ Some Russians of distinction and talent affirm that a man is never sentenced to death; but I presume if the man is condemned to receive that which human nature cannot survive, it amounts to nearly the same thing. For instance in 1826, at Taganrok, a man who had been guilty of murder, and who justly merited death, was condemned before a military tribunal to receive 15,000 strokes of the sticks, running the gauntlet through a thousand men fifteen times. The Empressmother, with that merciful disposition she ever manifested, (for never was there, since the creation of the world, a milder, more excellent, or feeling woinan,) solicited, and not in vain, that the culprit might be pardoned some of the punishment, upon which five thousand lashes were reduced. The man fell down at the reception of five hundred; he again rose, and received a hundred more, when he sank again; he was then lashed in a wheel-barrow and received the rest, although he was perfectly dead before a thousand had been administered. I have mentioned this one case, but when we come to examine the prisons at Moscow, I shall have occasion to relate many more. The questions are: In Russia do men receive impartial justice, or not? and, have they any means of forcing a trial within a certain time? In answer to the first question, I shall mention two cases which came under my own observation; not doubting, however, that sometimes an honest judge may be found, and sometimes justice fairly administered. The landlord of my house in Moscow entered an action to recover the sum of three thousand rubles, owed for goods to that amount delivered. Both parties bribed the judge, but the landlord was the most lavish, and he affirmed, and I believe it from the man's general character as an honest upright man, that he paid a thousand rubles, after the decision in his favour, on condition that he received the other two thousand his offer was accepted, and he paid the amount, after waiting two years for his money. An American gentleman, with whom I am personally acquainted, has, through divers lawsuits, and antagonists who have overbribed the judges, lost all of a very promising fortune: he thus related to me the origin of his downfal. He had purchased a vessel which was stranded * Clarke. +Rapport adressé à sa Majesté l'Empereur Nicolai, par la haute cour de justice, et jugement rendu contre les criminels d'état. at Archangel, for a trifling sum of money, and perceiving that the vessel had not received so serious a damage as to hinder her repairs for a moderate sum, he entered into an agreement (and which agreement, together with all the papers relative to this business, I have seen), with a Russian ship-builder, to have the said vessel taken in hand, to be repaired with oak planks, and to be finished in two months, the American paying a thousand rubles in advance. A month elapsed, and the vessel, instead of being in a more forward state, was gradually disappearing; plank after plank was removed, and a hempen cable, and other trifling articles, were daily found advancing towards a store kept by the contractor, and at the end of two months she was perfectly plankless. The American sued his adversary: in the first place, to recover his thousand rubles; secondly, to recover the value of the ship; and, lastly, the forfeit due on the non-performance of the contract. Before the trial commenced, he asked the chief judge to dinner, and without any round-about conversation, offered him a handsome remuneration if he would only give him justice. The judge declined the bribe, alleging he had received more from the other party; but as the American imagined he had offered quite enough, the negotiations with the chief judge were broken off. But the American succeeded in bribing the other four who constituted the court; and when the opinions were delivered, four were for the American, and the chief judge for the Russian. This gave rise to a reference to Moscow. In the governor's note I saw a remark that a doubt could not be entertained concerning the case, the American having been decidedly defrauded. The action, however, was made over to the court at Riga. It was held in dispute for nearly a year: the Russian being a man of wealth, and the American becoming poorer and poorer, bribes advanced on one side, as they decreased on the other; indeed, they were partially relinquished by the American, who believed his case secure after the first and second decisions; so much so, that even a Russian court must do justice. But no, the cause was given against him at Riga, and having passed the council at Petersburgh, received the signature of the Emperor, so that the ship, deposit, and cable, passed as the lawful property of the Russian. It has been asserted that the Russians, by means of a sort of " Court of Conscience," called "Slovestnoy Sood," possessed a Habeas Corpus Act; for, if a petition is delivered to this court, specifying that a prisoner has been detained in prison upwards of three days without his knowing the cause of such detention, the court is bound, before it breaks up, to examine the prisoner, and to state the reasons of his arrest. If the court find the prisoner has not been detained for any offence against the person of the Emperor, or for treason, murder, or robbery, he is discharged, or so far set at liberty, that on the receipt of a proper order he may hereafter be brought before them, or any other court he may choose, where his cause will be tried. That such a court exists I do not deny; and that an oral tribunal, called "Slovesnoy Sood" is likewise in existence, I am prepared to admit; but the courts are, to the poor, of no benefit whatever; although, should the court of conscience omit to explain the cause of a man's detention, the president may be fined five hundred silver rubles, which is more than his yearly salary; but the poor man could never bring his case before the knowledge of another court, for, as I said before, by rubles alone can you get a cause decided. That these are not merely assertions, I shall relate the following proofs. In Moscow, in 1828, I visited the great prison. It is a large and circular building, enclosing a space sufficient for the exercise of the prisoner, and has a bath, to which, on every Thursday and Monday, a certain number of the prisoners are allowed to resort. The interior arrangement was not what I had anticipated, for whoever has visited the public establishments in Russia, will readily admit that more regularity and more cleanliness exist, than in any other country in the world; but in this prison I never remember to have seen more filth, or to have perceived worse perfumes in my life. The interior of each ward has two long planks, one on each side of the room, and running the whole length of it, on which the prisoners sleep, enveloped in a sheep skin, and huddled close together. I remember being astonished at the numbers enclosed in one ward, where no distinction was made between the felon, and the culprit for minor offences. It was in the largest and best-filled ward, that while we were asking the cause of detention of some young vagabonds, a man past eighty years of age prostrated himself before the governor, and kissed the hem of his shube. His hair was as white as snow, his eyes dimmed nearly to blindness, which, assisted by the palsy, marked him as rapidly approaching his end. "Surely," said I," this man can hardly be worth confining, for death will soon rid the empire of the hoary sinner; pray, what may be the crime for which he is detained?"-"This man," said the governor, (with particular emphasis,)" this man has lost his passport!" I had often heard that no greater reproach could be used by one man to another than to say "You are a fellow without a passport." But little did I think that the want of one subjected a man to a long confinement with half the felons in the country. This poor man had been confined two months, and had every prospect of remaining two months more; he being old and useless, his master made no inquiries concerning his absence, and in all probability the poor old unfortunate man will die in the prison. 66 We were led from ward to ward until, ascending a flight of stairs, we came to some small narrow rooms, destined for the prisoners kept in solitary confinement. On opening one door, a tall, thin figure, with a long white beard, rose with some difficulty from his resting-place. He had been in solitary confinement more than six months, he had never been brought to trial; and the governor himself said, "It is probable this man may not be tried for a year; he is suspected of coining, but I do not think there is sufficient evidence to convict him." The governor asked the poor fellow if he had any complaint to make, which was answered, by a shake of the head, in the negative. The next cell was inhabited, and had been inhabited for some months, by a schismatic. He, likewise, had never been tried: it was mere suspicion that he was what he was supposed to be. It was on seeing this man that my companion blessed the laws of his own happy island, and whispered the benefit of the Habeas Corpus Act; and very little did I think that at that moment a work was in the press in London which mentioned the Russian empire as a free nation, where justice was administered with an equal and a steady hand. We then entered the room in which eight of the nobility were confined: four out of the eight had never been tried, and one, who had not the slightest idea of the cause of his confinement, had inhabited his prison for five months. However, these gentlemen seemed contented enough; they had beds, perhaps a novelty to some of them, and fiddles and guitars swung upon the whitewashed walls. They were at dinner, and, for prisoners, certainly appeared to be well fed. It is but justice to say, that in this respect the common man gained by his confinement: it is seldom that when at liberty they have more than black bread, a thin miserable soup, and quass; here they had meat twice a week, and a fair proportion was issued to each. That an arrest is not uncommon, I shall mention the following anecdote, communicated to me by the Prince himself who is the hero of the tale. He was at the head of his regiment, when a party of Cossacks brought a sledge, into which he was placed, and carried more than one thousand wersts to St. Petersburgh, without having the slightest notice of the cause of this cold and uncomfortable trip. The day after his arrival, he was ushered into the presence of the just and good Nicholas; by him he was received in the most cordial manner-the Emperor desired the prisoner to consider him as a friend, and not as a sovereign, and then hinted that some suspicion had been levelled against the Prince as being connected in some manner with the attempted revolution. The Prince stated the services of himself and of his family, and protested against the charge with all the warmth of injured honour. He was, notwithstanding, confined in the fortress for six months; he never was asked a single question during that time, at the expiration of which he was released, but has not to this day recovered the command of his regiment. On this subject I could fill volumes, but the above cases are sufficient to show, what we all knew before a late publication was issued, that the Russians are not a free people. In another part of the prison herds of persons destined to form colonies in Siberia, were resting before they began their long and miserable voyage. Dr. Clarke mentions" that to a Russian nobleman the sentence of exile can hardly imply punishment.' This, from my knowledge of late events, I am not prepared to credit. It is known that of late years the nobility, who have been dispatched to that uncomfortable residence, have become the most depraved and demoralized people. The intrigues of the women have opened the source of a complaint, which is now in the most alarming advance; and I could mention instances, were I not restrained by delicacy, in which women who have, in the most generous manner, relinquished the society of the capital to linger out their lives in exile with their husbands, have received the most brutal treatment, when the generous sacrifice of liberty (Russian liberty) demanded a far different reward. How much, on arrival in Siberia, the punishments imposed are lightened, I am not prepared to speak: but certainly the preparations for exile are by no means comfortable. When the present Emperor mounted the throne, about six thousand men lost their lives; the principal agents in the resistance attempted against Nicholas were executed; others connected with the * Clarke, vol. i. |