The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-01-26
Bnnishment by Order of Court AbOI-
ished and Capital Punishment
Not to BE Permitted.
LONDON STORY DENOUNCED
RUSSIA DID NOT INSTIGATE THE
BOXER MOVEMENT.
Denial by Prince OukbtOms<y, Whose
Name WINS Used-The New Man.
churian Treaty.
of the Associated Press.

Correspondence Of the Associated Press.
ST. PETERSBURG, Jan. 1.-THE COM
mission which has been revising the criml-
nal code during the last fifteen years has
made its report to the council of the en-
pire. The new code, If adopted, will re-
place the code of 1S45 and will, naturally,
contain numerous vital changes. The most
important innovation will, ii is said, be
found in the chapter on the moral re-
sponsibiity of minors and the mentally de-
fective. This chapter is by Prof. Tagantseff.
The code in its entirety has been submitted
to various foreign and domestic authori-
ties, including Prof. Franz Won List, Of
Berlin, who is reported TO have pronounced
an advance on any code now in exis-
tence. Owing to superior definition and
classification of crimes, the new code will
contain less than one-third as many crimes
as the old code. which has LII paragraphs.
Banishment by order of court is abolished
altogether, various forms of Imprisonment
being substituted. Emperor Nicholas II has
already broken up Punishment to Siberia by
order of court, but owing to the lack of
prisons Punishment could not be done away
with altogether and prisoners continued to
be sent to Archangel and the island of
Saghalien. The ministry of Justice has re-
Gently exerted considerable efforts to pro-
vide the prisons needed in order TO permit
the abandonment of judicial Punishment
when the code should be completed.
While the action of the Emperor did not
affect the Punishment to Siberia of political
suspects by order of the police il is not
known that any of the suspects relegated
from the capitals last year were sent to
Asiatic Russia.
The code will abolish capital punish
ment altogether. The old code had re-
tained ii for crimes against the imperial
family, for treason and rebellion, and for
evasion of quarantine. OF course, the
code will take cogniZance of newly de-
fined crimes, such as blackmai 1t will not
make ordinary strike a crime, but
threatens with higher penalties those cases
of riOting and injury TO property or person
which may be found to have been occas-
Toned by a strike.
treme suffering from famine and scurvy in
Akmollinsk province, where, 1T is said,
there was virtually no harvest last year.
Twenty-siX residents of Irkoutsk have sent
Count Tolstoi over 1000 roubles for famine
sufferers in European Russia. This is more
than half as much all Russia had sub
Scribed to the Red Cross relief fund at
last accounts.
Dr. Bertonson. in the medical congress
just closing, strongly attacked the eleven
and-a-half-hoUr working day, which is legal
here The medical section passed resolu-
tons favoring the eight-hour day.
The Moscow medical congress gave an
ovation to a rural physician named Clos
son. employed by the Samara Zemstvo,
who, equipped with only his ordinary field
instruments, removed half the stomach Of
q peasant. The patient, a woman, recov-
cred.