The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-18 00:00:00

FRIDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 18, 1861.

to the police as " Spuddy," was sentenced to ten
years' penal servitude about fifteen months since,
for a daring burglary and robbery at the business
premises of Mr, Carpenter, pawnbroker and jewel-
ler, Cannon-street, St. George-in-the-East.

A few nights since Humphrey was inveigled into
a most infamous house in the Back-road, Shadwell,
where many outrages and robberies have been com-
mitted. He was promised "a snug berth and good
treatment." He could not go to his ship, which
was in the Commercial Dock, Rotherhithe, and, to
use his own words, " any port in a storm would do
for him." He entered the house at a late hour of
the night, he was greatly fatigued, and somewhat
the worse for liquor. He was provided with a bed,
and soon fell asleep. He was soon stripped of every-
thing he possessed, and when he awoke and missed
his watch, money, silk handkerchiefs, clothes, and
pocket-book, he " sung out" loudly for the police.
He was ill-used by the people in the house, and
turned into the street, with nothing upon his per-
son except his shirt and trousers. On the morning
of the 4th inst., between eight and nine o'clock, the
prisoner offered the prosecutor's watch in pawn at
the shop of Mr. Byas, a pawnbroker in Rateliff
Highway. She was interrogated by Mr. Cunning-
ham, an intelligent young man, the pawnbroker's
assistant, and she said the watch belonged to John
Sullivan. Mr. Cunningham asked her what initials
were upon the watch, and she was unable to de-
scribe them. He immediately gave her into cus-
tody of a constable named Barber, 99 H, who found
upon her 15 duplicates relating to property on
which she had raised money at pawnbrokers' shops.
Among them were the duplicates of three gold rings,
and the ticket or memorandum of a monkey-jacket,
which the sailor valued at 355., and was pawned
by the prisoner for 12s. only, at the shop of Mr.
Child, pawnbroker, No. 216, High-street, Shad-
well, on the morning of the 4th instant. The
police recovered nearly the whole of Humphrey's
property, including seven new silk handker-
chiefs. His money was not found. The second
case against the prisoner was a very singular
one. A woman named Mary Ahearn, wife of a
convict, who has kept a house of ill-fame, wore
five gold rings on her fingers, and, like most
women of her class, was very fond of displaying
them. One Thursday in August last she laid down
on her bed, at her dwelling, in Victoria-street,
Shadwell, very ill, and soon fell asleep. A woman
named Mary Ann Smith, who was called Sally
throughout the investigation, took the rings off the
fingers of her mistress while the latter was asleep,
deposited them in a purse, and put them in her
pocket. The prisoner came to Ahearn's house, at
half-past one o'clock in the morning, to purchase a
halfpenny candle, and entered into conversation
with Sally, who was seated in a chair at the door
of the house. Sally followed the example of her
mistress Ahearn, and fell asleep in the chair. When
she awoke, the purse containing the rings were
gone. Sally immediately waited on the prisoner,
and asked her if she had seen the purse and rings.
The old woman stoutly denied all knowledge of
either. Three of the rings were now produced.
They had been pawned by the prisoner directly
after they were missed by Sally. The assistants
of three pawnbrokers produced them, and they
were valued at £3. The other rings stolen at the
same time are still missing.
The prisoner said she was a servant in the house
where the sailor was plundered, and the watch and
monkey-jacket were given to her to pawn, and she
did not know how they were obtained. he found
the purse, containing the rings, in Shadwell.
Mr. Woolrych said the conduct of the pawn-
broker's assistant, Cunningham, was highly credit-
able to him, and he was glad to hear that the same
person had detained other offenders. He sentenced
the prisoner to two months' imprisonment and hard
labour for the unlawful possession of the sailor's
watch, and one month's imprisonment and hard
labour for illegally pawning the three gold rings.

THE UNIVERSITIES OF ENGLAND

AND RUSSIA.

The young gentlemen who are now reassembling
at Oxford and Cambridge will be considerably struck
with the contrast just disclosed between college life
in England and college life in Russia. The univer-
sity of St. Petersburg was summarily closed exactly
at the time that the universities of our own country
were opened, and when the studies of the former
seminary are resumed it will only be after a violent
and alarming suspension of academical existence.
The strange story now reported acquires an addi-
tional interest from the fact that the disturbance is
traced to an imitation of England, not, indeed, on
the part of the students, but on the part of the Go-
vernment. We shall, perhaps, accomplish a double
purpose by drawing attention to the affair. The
public at home will be edified by a very curious
narrative, and authorities abroad may gain an in-
sight into the circumstances from which the cha-
racter of the English universities is really derived.
The university of St. Petersburg has been
hitherto an institution maintained as well as con-
trolled by the Russian Government. The students
paid nothing, or next to nothing, for the instrue.
tion they received. The professors drew their
salaries from the public treasury, and so utterly
insignificant were the fees exacted from their classes
that nine-tenths of the whole number of undergra-
duates were provided with tuition gratuitously.
Under such circumstances it is easy to understand
from what classes of society the students of the
university were mainly furnished. Many of them
were only enabled to subsist by the charity of their
friends, and an association existed in the univer-
sity for tubscribing and distributing the alms which
such necessities required. These conditions, how-
ever, of academical life were no obstacle to learn-
ing. The Professors were able, the undergraduates
were diligent, and the diffusion of knowledge pro-
duced its usual fruits in curiosity, scepticism, and
discussion. It happened that all Russia was in a
ferment. The emancipation of the serfs, the revo-
lutionary agitation in Poland, and the countless
sources of excitement incidental to a state of tran-
sition, were all working together to produce dis-
quietude, and the University of St. Petersburg soon
showed symptoms of political fever. In short,
Russia was acquiring knowledge, but with it she
was acquiring a spirit scarcely consistent with the
obedience exacted by a despotic Government. This
was not what the authorities desired. They wished
their University .to resemble Oxford or Cambridge
rather than Jena or Gottingen, and they proceeded,
according to the best of their information or power,
to give effect to their views.
Tee Vice-Chancellor, as we should say, of St.
Petersburg was a distinguished sailor, who had just
resigned the command of the China fleet, and his
coadjutor was a soldier of good reputation, fresh
from hard service in the Caucasus. The authorities,
in devising their scheme of University Reform, did
not propose any change in these features of acade-
mical administration. Perhaps they had heard
that the Duke of Wellington had been Chancellor
of the University of Oxford, and had inferred that
Rear-Admiral Count Putiatin was exactly the man
for his place. They did, however, take one very
notable step towards the assimilation of Oxford and
St. Petersburg in respect of University government.
They established the office of proctor. There was
some difficulty about the appointment, and consi-
derable obscurity about the duties in contempla-
tion, but the proctorship was instituted never-
theless. Then the academical costume—a military
uniform—was abolished, perhaps as a preliminary
measure to the introdiction of the cap and gown ;
but the great step of all was of a financial charac-
ter. Instead of attempting, as we do, to reduce
University expenses, the Russian authorities deter-
mined to raise them. They ordained that every
student should be called upon for a contribution of
50 roubles, or about £8 55., per annum, instead of
receiving, as heretofore, a gratuitous education. Un-
fortunately, these reforms proved neither palatable
nor successful. Nobody would take the Proctorship,
and so it was given to a species of police officer who
was not a member of the University. The uniform
was prized as a distinction, and, in the absence of
any substitute, the .students Were unwilling to give
it up. Worst of all, however, was the new scale of
fees. If enforced, it would have driven many of
them away from the University altogether, and pre-
cluded them from all chance of completing their
studies. So the whole University Bill was regarded
in a hostile spirit, and, though the undergraduates
did nothing worse, they did assemble in public
meeting. But public meetings were forbidden by law,
and the students therefore were committing an illegal
act. When they ventured, for the third time, on thus
assembling for discussion, they found that the Uni-
versity had ceased to be. That institution, not having
in Russia the abstract and immaterial character
distinguishing it here, but being tangibly and visibly
represented by walls and doors, was " closed " upon
the students. They were locked out, and the Uni-
versity of St. Petersburg was fairly shut up, like a
bankrupt's shop or a theatre on a fast-day. Since
then it has been announced that other Russian Uni-
versities are closed also, and it is feared, indeed,
that none will be left open.
We can readily sympathise with foreign Govern-
ments in their admiration of the English Uni-
versities. The Continental visitors who descend
upon Oxford and Cambridge in the guise of
‘strangers" must be greatly im-
preiseidngwspectacle which meets their eyes.
They see the flower
‘dsstuiitshhetdhe
of English youth, assembled at
the most'excitable period of life, and exposed to all
the contagion of concourse and example, present-
, ing, nevertheless, an aspect of intense and unquali-
fied Conservatism. They are told that neither
learning nor freedom, nor any other characteristic
of University life, prevents the constituencies of
Oxford and Cambridge from being, in a political
sense, the least Liberal bodies in the kingdom. They

are further informed that these free and fearless
spirits, animated by all the fire and confidence of
youth, are sent out into the world to leaven it, not
with revolutionary, but with Conservative, doc-
trines ; and that the ancient institutions under
which these principles are maintained have actually
been likened to hulks moored in a stream, which
serve by their immobility to mark the swiftness of
the flood. When they hear all this, and when they
recall the democratic vagaries and the periodical
insurrections of the Universities which they have
got at home, they wish very sincerely that every
seminary in their dominions resembled Oxford and
Cambridge.
_ _

The history of all this, however, lies not in the
place, nor in the studies pursued, but in the social
position which the English Universities have insen-
sibly acquired. The students at those ancient seats
of learning are not made Conservatives ; they are
Conservatives before they come. What has always
preserved England from revolutions is that the
great body of the people have far more to lose than
to gain by such catastrophes, and our Oxford and
Cambridge men represent some of the most con-
tented specimens of a contented nation: They are
taken from well-to-do and satisfied classes, and it
is the blessing of this country that such classes,
instead of being confined to a caste of nobles, per-
vade society from top to bottom. If the Russian
authorities could have converted the University of
St. Petersburg into a seminary frequented almost
exclusively by students of fair social position and
moderate means; and if, for the satisfaction of the
necessitous or ambitious, they had provided ample
rewards within the University itself, there is no
doubt that St. Petersburg would have acquired a
great similarity to Oxford and Cambridge. So far,
the proposed taxation, though so small in its amount,
did point to some perception of the truth, but it is
obvious that the scheme could only have been car-
ried out at the cost of the institution itself. At pre-
sent the University of St. Petersburg is a most use-
ful and valuable seminary. If it does not exactly
shape the public mind, it does, at any rate, commu-
nicate excellent instruction to many who would
otherwise remain uninstructed. We have no ground
for supposing that if it forsook these functions it
would find the materials for discharging others after
the fashion of Oxford and Cambridge. We do not
suppose that Russia yet contains an immense and
contented middle class, which could profit by the
social as well as intellectual education obtainable at
a University framed on the English model. All these
things have yet to come. When they do come, the
desired University will probably come with them,
but ill the meantime it is neither hopeful nor wise
to attempt a scheme out of keeping with things
around it, or to sacrifice to chimerical apprehen-
sions an institution which is contributing in no
small degree to the national progress.—Times.