The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS•

SPECTATOR.—The description which Swedish
and Norwegian journals give of the present condi-
tion of Finland is perfectly horrible. The chief
crops, potatoes, rye, and barley, having failed in
two successive seasons, three-fourths of the popula-
tion of the duchy are in a state of starvation, and
thousands are said to have already succumbed to
famine. In some towns iu the interior, for instance
the ancient Tavastehus, with its grand old castle
on the margin of a vast lake, the formerly flourish •
ing Kuopio, Heinola, and other places, all trade and
commerce have come to a complete standstill, the
shops being shut, and most of the inhabitants
having left their houses to seek food as beggars at
a distance. Hosts of wan and weary pilgrims flock
in long files into Abo, Helsingfors, Kumo and Wasa;
others try to creep along the shores of the Ladega
Lake to St. Petersburg; and while some few reach the
goaland find a scanty subsistence, many more perish
on the road, to be devoured by dogs and wolves, who
are swarming all over the country. Babies die on
the breasts of their mothers for want of nourish-
ment ; children, with ghastly faces and hollow eyes,
are met with everywhere attempting to stifle the
cravings of hunger by chewing roots and the bark
of trees ; and old people, helpless to move in the
general ship wreck, crouch down in holes and corners
to die a lingering, fearful death. While all these
scenes of unspeakable distress, horror, and wretched-
ness are beheld on the northern shores of the Gulf
of Finland, on the south side of the same inlet of
the sea, the brilliant court of the Czar, surrounded
by the elite of the Russian nobility, are revelling in
luxury, with a display of pomp and magnifience as
boundless as the misery on the opposite coast.
Balls, theatricals, and fetes of all kinds chase each
other ; troops of Italian singers, brought from the far
south, regardless of expense" delight the ears
of a galaxy of princes and nobles, and the most per-
fect corps de ballet which even Paris could produce
has arrived to turn pirouettes, at imperial price, on
the borders of the Neva. There never was such a
magnificent season as the present at the Russian
ineropolis say all the letters from St. Petersburg.
In Sweden and Norway, and particularly in Swe-
den, long connected in political union with Finland,
the fearful distress under which the country has
been suffering has excited the deepest sympathy.
For the last three or four months house to house
collections, in aid of the starving Finlanders, have
been made all over Sweden ; the merchants on the
Exchange of Stockholm have subscribed princely
sums ; king and court
and everybody down have set the example
lathe
of
generous charity, ,
lowest peasant, has contributed something to
the Finland Relief Fund. In fact, the people of
Sweden seem to have done, comparatively, quite as
much for the starving Finnish population as we for
our own Lancashire pour. In striking contrast
with this behaviour stands that of the Russian Go-
vernment. All along, scanty and tardy relief only
has been sent from St. Petersburg to the adjoining
province in the north; and the policy of the Home
Administration seems to have been rather to sup-
press facts than to incite the sympathy of the gene-
ral public, However, it was clearly impossible to
carry out this system for any length of time; and
seeing it fail, a month or two ago, the Imperial Go-
vernment had recourse to a new method for getting
rid of its responsibility in the matter. The semi-
official _lnvalids Busse first announced to the
public, and the other more or less dependent
journals successively repeated the statement,
that the " Grand Duchy of Finland" was en-
tirely independent of the control of the central Go-
vernment, and that its own administration was alone
to be blamed for the insufficiency of proper arrange-
ments for stemming the current of famine. To give
proof of this assertion, Baron de Langenskield, the
head of the department of finances at Helsingfors,
was sent to London in the beginning of December
to negotiate a loan for Finland ; and, being pro-
perly backed by the Russian ambassador, succeeded
in borrowing about three quarters of a million star-
ling from idesars.ltothschild and Co., at the rate of I
5 9-10ths per cent. The sum thus obtained was
honestly applied for the alleviation of the distress.
It is satisfactory to learn from the last accounts,
however, from St. Petersburg that the famine in
Finland has now reached its culminating point, and
is visibly abating. The price of the famine, too, seems
to be really secured, for there are serious preparations
made for assembling the Parliament of Finland at the
beginning of April. The old constitution, which is to
be recalled into life after the lapse of more than
half a century, dates from 1772, and is similar to
that of Sweden. It provides for a Diet of four
estates, comprising deputies of the nobility, clergy,
burghers, and peasants, each estate deliberating and
voting separately, except in constitutional ques-
tions, when all four unite together. This somewhat
cumbrous legislative machinery the Czar-Grand
Duke intends working in a new way, by means of
questions and answers. First, the Government is
to ask a series of questions of each of the four
Chambers, and these having been satisfactorily
answered, then the Chambers in their turn are at
liberty to interrogate the Government. Finally,
the quintessence of all these questions and answers
is to be shaped into constitutional formulas and
propositions by the Governor-General of Finland,
Baron Rokassowski, to be then either voted or re-
jected by the Diet. The new system will form a
curious inauguration of Parliamentary Government
in Russia.

LONDON REVlEW.—Thousands of crimes are an-
nually committed, especially those of a minor cha-
racter, which are never detected or published, and
thousands of criminals are charged to whom con-
viction cannot be brought home. For example, we
find for 1861 50,809 crimes recorded, on account of
which only 27,174 were apprehended. Of these
only 16,764 were committed for trial, and only
13,879 convicted. Of the more
ried
serious crimes, or
t
indictable offences, such as are by juries at
sessions and assizes, the number last year was, as
we have seen, 50,809. Of minor offences,
from vagrancy and drunkenness up to I ranging
theft, and
disposed of summarily before magistrates, 4. er e
were 394,717 charged, which resulted in the
conviction of 263,500 persons. On the whole,
therefore, it appears that nearly 500,000 of-
fences, large and small, come annually under the
cognizance of the police, and that nearly 300,000
persons are punished for them. Great pains have
of late been taken by the authorities to ascertain
and keep an accurate record of that portion of the
Population which is known to live by crime or vag-
f
rancy, which last nearly always implies a course
ver o
petty pilfering, or of mendicancy approaching y
nearly to the same character. Nearly all these
classes
are pretty well known to the police in their
respective districts
only include those and the returns
. now presented
ting those who, whose trade is depredation,
thoughomit-
ting they
convicted, are may have been once
a course of honest %dr' to be pursuing
as follows, in round numbeartrY.
persons,
ere of
The list is
and depredators, 30,000 ; receivers
thieves
34,000 ;
goods, 3,800 ; Suspectedstolen
Vagrants and tramps, 23,000. Toth
rZeonE,avuiszt.
add the number of criminals actually .esep
—in local prisons,l6,6ol ; in convict ln
in reformatories, 3,190. Making a prisons,ro"l,423;
total of
116,723, whose business and habit it !toiler
society in one form or another. It must prey
ea3lrlouwpond
that the above numbers constitute a very consider-
able and a very formidable army—one nearly as
large, in fact, as her Majesty's regular troops. Let
us see, now., what sort of a force we keep on foot
for watching, defeating, and punishing this crowd
of malefactors. It amounts to about one-fifth of
the criminals. 'The total is :—police and constabu-
lary, 21,413; establishment in local prisons, 2,334;
establishment in convict prisons, 1,182. That is to
aleYl.
we have 25,000 guardians of the community to
da
th 120,000 enemies of it—a proportion which,
well handled, ought surely to be adequate. The
recorded cost of our repressive and punitive esta-
blishments is as foll
:—Police and constabulary,
£1,579,222; outlay in £542,306;
outlay in convict prisounst al prisons,
establishments abroad, £1715834131 ; cost of convict
Against this sum we ought, p•e, total, £2,547,120.
:Ps, to set the
estimated value of the prisoners"
it is so mere an estimate that we confess though
this with much misgiving. These
earnings are ,