The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-30

his chancellory of petitions. This institu. ton. in Russian, "Kantsellarrya Pc Prin iatiyu Present. Prinosimuikh Yevo velit
 chestvy," is as ponderous as 1t sounds It IS also the most important institution in the empire for it can override any other; 1t employ over 100 clerks, spend. 1nealculable sums, and, in the judgment of ts late chief, Baron Alexander Bud
 berg, "does as much good as the averag, poIce ottlcer" In other words. precious little No other European court has ar office of petitions of comparable size That Is because Nicholas chancellory is supposed to attend to the complains of everyone who is sick, hungry, oppressed or miserable That means by far the larger half of Nicholas unluclxy subjects The chancellory of petitions Is one of those quaint quasi-democratic institutions which flourish only under autocracies II is fruit of a fayorite Savophile nation, that every man, however humble, should nave direct access to his sovereign. The hateful pasEaments a,A bureaucrats of less fortunate Europe are replaced by simple, direct and fatherly correspondence between Czar and moujik. This notion played big part in the reactionary cam paign during the revolution-the reaction aries even planned a 'dlrect parliament or 4ooo peasants who, without any rules or procedure. were to shout their demands lnto the ears of the presiding Czar The chancellory of petitions embodies this quaint paternalist ideal. In theory it in- vites everyone to write to the Czar. So .he autocratist fiction<of fundamental democracy is admiralty kept up
 Three hundred and forty-two thousand. seven hundred and nine petitions from dis satisfied subjects were sent into Nicholas Il s chancellory in 1913. That is about one Tn every 300 of Russia's 16o, o0O 900 inhabi- tants The number has progressively in- creased. In 1912 the number was 325. .79s; Tn 1910 1t was only 2l3,545. In the years Of the revolution the number fell enor- mously. as people vainly imagined that they were going to help themselves with out any Czar. Today the number in- creases because people have lost that nope; and because the courts of justice and the administration grows more con- gested and hopeless- The chancellory, which is in theory "Batiushka the Czar,'' IS appealed to as a last resort About one out of 50 petitions get a favorable answer An enormous number are not answered at all, or are postponed for in- quiries and further consideration until the petitioner is dead.
 Nicholas great petitions bureau has it's headquarters in the Mariyinsky palace opposite St. 1saac's cathedral a building also occupied by the council of state. Formerly the Mariyinsky palace housed the whole chancellory; but now half the clerks have to be housed on the Fontanka canal, and others work at Tsarskoe Selo The chancellory developed to it's present slze under the Baltic province nobleman Baron Budberg, and his adlatus, Privy Councillor Mamontoff now director. Bud berg, Petersburg swears, was killed by petitions He had been taking severe re- strictive measures to cut down the num- Der of friVDlOlIs and bo success Early this year he asked M. Mamontoff for report on the number or petitions sent in. He found that in- stead of @ decrease there was a big in crease. He collapsed in his chair, swamped by the flood of petitions which ne had all his life tried to swim through. A week later Budberg was dead.
 Every Russian thinks he has a right to send Nicholas IT petition on all pos- sible occasions. About two-thirds send petitions In the correct sense--requests to release prisoners, to make money grants. to see that pensions are granted and SO on The other petitions have character possible only in Russia where legality is unknown. They are requests to the Czar himself to decide judicial questions, to override the courts, and in particular to grant absolution or immunity from the
 law governing marriage, parenthood, etc. Every year about 1000 petitions are sent in asking for exceptional treatment in di- vorce affairs An official need not hesi- tate to marry second time before he has fully divorced his first wife,
 He relies upon a petition to the Czar to stop proceedings for bigamy and to have his second marriage declared law ful. If the applica.;t is backed by in fuential persons. or if he is able to pay a bribe, the petition is granted. A fa- vorite request to Nicholas II is that he shall order divorce proceedings to be hurried up. or that he shall instruct the synod to grant divorce when the synod is unwilling. As the synod is itself thor oughly corrupt, it does not hesitate about taking the Cars orders. Last year a member named Yaglinski was publicly ac- cused of selling divorces for $500 each. Persons without money and persons who object to bribery apply by petition to the Czar This was the case of General ~ukhomlinoff, minister of war. for whom he Czar compelled to the synod to grant
 divorce to Madame Denisoff, now Mad
 me Sukhomlinoff. This was after the
 ynod had formally ruled there was no round for divorce. This abuse of peti- tions leads to incredible confusion in Russian family relations No one can l.~f.<