The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-26 00:00:00

THE NATURALIZATION BILL.

The House next went into committee on this bill, the
preamble of which was postponed. The first, second,
third, and fourth clauses were, after some discussion and
after several amendments had been proposed, adopted.
Mr. M`MAnoN suggested that the fifth clause should be
omitted, inasmuch as it seemed as if they were going to
alter an established principle of law with regard to the
trial of aliens.

The clause, however, was adopted.
Clauses 6,7, 8, and 9 were agreed to.
On Clause 10 being proposed,

Alderman LAWRENCE said he thought e rights
of married women were not properly protected in the bill.
As the clause stood, there was no power to prevent a wife
being made an alien against her will. When she entered
into the marriage state she did not, according to his view,
give up her right as a British subject. He hoped, on the
bringing up the report the defect he had referred to would
be altered.

The ATTORNEY GENERAL said it was almost impossible
for Parliament to provide against conceivable hard cases.
It appeared to him that it was only possible either to
enact that married women should take the status of their
husbands or not, and the best arrangement in his
opinion was to choose the first. Children born
in this country would all be British born subjects.
Mr. KINNAIRD thought the proposal a very hard one
upon women generally.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL thought the objection theo-
retical only, as the clause did not affect her right to pro-
perty in the slightest degree.
Sir R. PALMER thought the clause as it stood in the bill
was the best and safest enactment the House could adopt.
_ _

Alderman LAWRENCE could not approve of a clause that
handed over a wife as a chattel to her husband, because
it was supposed that that was the easiest way of dealing
with a difficult case.

Mr. JEssEI thought the clause was quite in accordance
with international law. The general rule was that the
nationality of the wife always followed that of the hus-
band.

The clause was then agreed to, as were the remaining
clauses of the bill, and the House then resumed. _

WAR OFFICE BILL. •
On the order for the third reading of this bill,
Mr. FIELDEN moved that it be read a third time upon
that day six months. He had found that it was a bill
which appointed two new Under Secretaries in the War
Office, with seats in that House, and a salary of £1,500 a-
year each. He objected altogether to the appoint-
ments proposed ; and there could not, ho contended,
be any necessity for their having a seat in the House, believ
ing that the Secretary of State for War was quite capable
of answering questions relative to the department. He
thought the proposition to create two new offices came
with a very bad grace from the Government which had
been effecting a reduction of the labouring staff at the,
dockyards and of the armyand navy. He pointed out that
the proposition, if adopted, would give the Government
two additional supporters. The time, he also held, was
altogether inopportune, and he asked what the men who
had been dismissed from their employment would say.
He believed they would stigmatise the bill as a Whig job.
Wile argued, there was any necessity to reduce the number
of employ& it was unnecessary to appoint more clerks. No
man engaged in commercial pursuits would dream of
appointing more and highly-paid officials at the same
time he was reducing his establishment in other respects.
Such men would not work, but they would give the
Government two votes, and his opinion was that that was
the object of the bill.

LORD ELCRO, who had given notice of an amendment,
that the bill be recommitted, said the bill had
excited through the various stages, very little attention.
He had objected to its third reading at an hour when
very few members were present, and he did so on the
ground that it had not received that consideration which
a measure of its importance demanded. He felt it wa:.
quite right for the Secretary • of War to do ab
in his power to bring about a better state of things than
at present existed at the War Office, but he questioned
whether the Davolutment of A clerk of the erd4Ance

a financial secretary was exactly the right way to do a ,
The great mistakes that had occurred years ago weremainly
due* to over-concentration, yet now the Government pro.
posed more concentration than ever. He thought that
the office of Controller-in-Chief would fail, because it was
proposed to put more duty on one man than
he could do. He was to be resPonsible foi
the clothing of both man and horse,. medical
stores, clothing, transport, the guns, and other duties
which no single person could effectually per-
form, yet such was to be the work which
was to be cast on the new clerkship. He
hoped that in the reconstruction of the Nar Office
the House would not be led away too much by the
idea of unity of control and unity of responsibility.
Mr. STANSFELD replied that no new office involving charge
would be created, and that no expense which led to improved
organisation, and therefore greater economy, would be
money thrown away.

Sir J. PARINGTON concurred entirely in the one object of
the bill, knowing from his own experience that the Secre-
tary for War was the hardest worked of all the Ministers.
Mr. CARDWELL enforced Sir J. Pakington's argument by
asserting that no one man could discharge all the duties of
Secretary for War. Replying to Lord Elcho's criticisms, he
explained that though the entire control of all supplies
would be concentrated in one head, there would be a divi-
sion of Departments below.

The bill was then read a third time, and passed by
80 to G.

On the second reading of the Poor Relief (Metropolis:
Bill,

Dr. BREWER moved its rejection.

Mr. Torrens, Mr. T. Chambers, Mr. W. 13. Smith, and
Mr. Harvey Lewis spoke against the hill, but Sir H. Hoare,
Mr. Locke, and Mr. Hardy approved the object of the
measure.
The bill was read a second time.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL then moved the second reading
of his bill for disfranchising Bridgewater and Beverley, sup-
porting his motion by copious extracts from the past electo-
ral history of these two peccant boroughs.
After some discussion the bill was read a second time.
The Norwich Voters Disfranchisement Bill was read a
second time.

The Mines Regulation Bill was committed pro forma, and
Mr. Bruce fixed the next stage for May 26.
The Wine and Beerhouses Act (1869) Amendments Bifl
was read a second time.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL brought in his University Tests
Bill, which was read a first time.

The House adjourned at 23 minutes past 1 o'clock.

MURDER OF A. NOBLEMAN AT ST.
PETERSBURGH.

A trial is now going on in St. Petersburg which is ex-
citing great interest. It concerns the murder of a noble-
man, M. de Zohn, last November. Under the new crimi-
nal code of Russia, which greatly resembles that of
France, the crininals were tried by jurymen. The court
was crowded in every available corner, and an immense
crowd assembled outside to catch a glimpse of the
prisoners, of whom there are six, the eldest
being only 26, and the youngest 16. The
cirsumstances of the murder were circum-
stantially narrated in the act of accusation. On
the evening of the 19th of November, 1869, the super-
annuated court councilor, Nicholas de Zohn, went to the
Nobility Club, which he left by ten o'clock. Since that
time he was missed, in spite of the most active searches of
the police. On the Ist of January of the present year an
artisan of St. Petersburg, Alexander Ivanof, called at the
office of the detective police, and declared that M. de Zohn
had been killed in his presence during the night of the 7th
or the Bth of November, in the house belonging to Tour,
situated in the Sparsky Perdvulok, and in the lodgings of
Maxime Ivanof, a burgess of St. Petersburg; it was
Maxime Ivanof who had committed the crime, with the
assistance of persons living in his lodgings. M. de Zohin's
corpse had been put in a trunk, and sent to Moscow by
rail on the Bth of November. A telegram from Moscow
confirmed that at the station of the Nicolai Railway there
was a trunk which had not been claimed by anybody,
and which had arrived on the Bth of November. That
trunk having been opened, the corpse of a man was
found in it. During the inquiries set about upon that
crime, Alexander Ivanof, an artisan of St. Petersburg, the
peasants Anthony Gratchef and John Fedorof, and tho
woman Alexandra Ardeief, a native of Cronstadt, ac-
knowledged having taken part in M. de Zohn's murder,
while Dania Tourbine, the daughter of a soldier, avowed
having concealed that crime. They had robbed him of
his money while he was drinking in Maxime Ivanof's
house, a theft which he returned to charge them with
threatening to go the police. There was a large disre-
putable party of men and women in Ivanof's house, and
most of them seem to have been concerned in
the murder. M. de Zohn, on protesting about the loss of
his money, was assured by Ivanhof that it was only a
joke, and invited to drink in token of reconciliation. M. de
Zohn appears to have agreed to this, and sat down on the
divan, but the drink which was given him was poisoned,
He fell back on the divan, crying out that he was poisoned.
when the miscreants attacked him in the most barbarous
fashion, one of them forcibly pouring some more poison
into his mouth, another beating him on the head with an
iron ; a third pulling a leather strap round his neck,
and a fourth, Alexandra ArdJief, a girl 18 years of ajge,
played on the piano and sang to drown the victim's cries.
Another girl is accused of concealing the crime though
she took no part in it. When the assassins made sure
their victim was dead they washed off the traces of blood
and sold his garments, afterwards buying a large port-
manteau and putting the corpse in it. The corpse was
dressed in a shirt, a waistcoat, a pair of drawers, and a
black neckerchief. The leather thong was still tied round
the neck. The empty places in the portmanteau were
filled up wite rags and hemp ; it was tied up with a rope
on which they affixed many seals of red wax. The pro-
duce of the sale of M. de Zohn's effects was divided by
Maxime Ivanof among the accomplices of the crime
who received 10 roubles 30 copecks each; but by order of
Maxime Ivanof every one gave back four roubles to John
Fedorof, who was to bring the corpse to Moscow, there to
get rid of it in any way. In the evening the portmanteau
containing the corpse was brought in a cab to the station
of the Nicholai Railway. John Federof occompanied the
portmanteau, and he was followed by Maxime Ivanof
and Alexander Ivanof. It was forwarded under the
assumed name of Koltzof. As soon as Maxime Ivanof
came back home he burnt the receipt of the railway.
Maxime Ivanof is charged with voluntary homicide, and
the four others with being accomplices. A sixth, as we
have said, is accu.ssed of concealing the crime.