The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-09-15

n "A lNo ny tHe
- ministry of Justice at ST.
Petersburg reveal the start
ling fact that there were S,691
murders committed in Russia within a
year, or at the average rate of twenty
each day. Russia is an enormous coun-
try with a large but relatively sparse
population. AS in no country in the
world is murder so prevalent, so in no
other nation is this crime so brutal or
seemingly so devoid of motive. Another
peculiar feature of the statistics Of
homicide in the dominions of the cZar
is the fact that a terrible percentage Of
these violent deaths are perpetrated by
women, with bloodthirsty premedita-
tion.
There are many causes contributory
to the prevalence of murder in the en-
pre. The first naturally comedies with
its immense area and population. Rus
sia Is inhabited by 100000 semi bar
barans, for the most part, stretching
CONTINUOUSLY from the Arctic ocean to
the Mediterranean sea and from the
Antarctic to the Pacific. In this vast
territory the people, so diversified in
race, religion and habits, have vet
scarcely at any point attained the
sociological development of western
Europe during the Middle Ages. or that
instructive submission to the restraint
of law and public opinion which is the
sanction of morality and the security
of order in more advanced countries.
The Russian code of criminal law
does not provide for capital punish
ment, except in the comparatively rare
instances where the assassin can be
identified with the Nihilists, or whose
crime is believed to have been inst-
gated through political motives. The
consequence is that in Siberia there are
rowing bands of murderers who have
either escaped from the penal colonies
or who have received conditional lib
erty. In the island of Shakhalin out of
ii convict settlement of three thousand,
two-thirds are murderers, many of
their account.
The Russian moujick is neither
vicious nor a revengeful peasant, but
he is fearfully ignorant and too fire.
quently a drunken sot. If he is bent
upon murder he sets about encompass
ing his ends with the phesmatic de-
liberation that he goes to his field to
hoe row OF corn. If woman is tired
of her husband she kills him with as
little compunctiOn as the new woman
files a suit for divorce. And it is prob
able that murder in Russia will con-
tinue to increase during the process of
ethnic, religious and political assimi-
lation of the eastern and western divis-
ions of the empire. The Russian gov
ernment consistently acts upon the
principle that the social criminal should
subserve the economic eXlgencies of
the state 1t is far otherwise with the
political exile. He Is assumed to be the
enemy of the czar and the bureaucratic
institutions upon which the autocracy
rests. From the Russian government
standpoint, he is an anarchist and is
treated in and out of prison as such.
Too much Importance should not be at
tached to the atrocities alleged to be
practiced on the convicts at Sakhalin
The Russian penal system is in many
respects far more enlightened than any
other in the world. If political exiles,
men of education and patriotic aspir-
ations, cannot adapt themselves TO it,
it is part of the penalty which con-
spirators pay under all forms OF gov
ernment for failure.
In ten years our foreign shipping de-