The Sun. — 1836-09-14 (London, England)

NICHOLAS. Such a work, were it to include the statistics, political and moral, of the whole empire, divided regularly into districts or provinces, would be truly invaluable. The summary before us only refers to the moral statistics of about ten millions and a half of people, and as there is no uniformity in the habits of the entire Russian population, it offers no secure data whereon to found a theory applicable to the moral state of the whole empire. The statistical tables, which are for the years 1821 and 1822, may be thus arranged with respect to the crimes of suicide and homicide : Population 10,593,251 Suicides (proved) Suicides (doubtful) ••• 3OO Homicides  Giving Suicides in proportion to the inhabitants in the ratio of 1 to 16,000, and Homicides in the ratio of 1 to 50,000. The proportion of male and female Suicides as 4 5-9ths to 1. The following is the ratio in which these crimes were committed among the different classes of society in Russia :  Suicides—Peasants or serfs, 956 ; being in the ratio of 1 to 16,7571 of both sexes. Merchants, 192 ; being in the proportion of 1 to 20,8331. Soldiers, 113; or in the proportion of 1 to 3,009. Nobles, 36; or 1 in 11,111. Clergy, 8 ; or 1 in 25,000.  What must particularly strike every philosophical 'reader, who examines this table, is the great prevalence of suicide among the serfs, to the almost total exclusion of every other class, except the army. Now, in a well regulated state of society, the peasantry are the very last to meditate suicide ; and wherever the government is well administered, its commission is very rare among them. The reason is obvious. - They are neither the victims of excessive hope or fear. They are not exposed to the instability of fortune ; and they arc equally strangers to the elations of spirit which result from the triumphs of ambition, and the suicidal depressions which link themselves as dead weights to the bitterness of disappointments. Their mine of wealth is in their limbs, and they know no ambition more exalted than the right of employing them in tilling and improving the soil for their own sustenance. Nothing, therefore, short of the most cruel tyranny can drive such men to think of suicide ; and the prevalence of such a crime among them proves their condition to be the most miserable that can possibly be imagined. Suicide among merchants and in the very highest circles in Russia is less common than we were prepared to expect. The prevalence of this crime among the commercial men of every country is easily accounted for by the heavy losses, and sudden reverses of fortune to which they are constantly exposed, and of which they are so frequently the hapless victims. The shock attendant on a momentary plunge from affluence to squalid penury is more than most minds ar3 able to bear, if not previously imbued with a good stock of moral and religious sentiments. With the nobility the case is pretty nearly the same as with the merchants. Debauchery and ambition are to the highest classes what the excessive desire to accumulate gain is to the mercantile world— the great incentives to the commission of suicide. Du; the very form of the Russian Government, which prevents every Noble from obtaining rank who does not pass step by step through the regular grades in the army, the civil service, or the Church ; and which takes good care that none of its merchants shall accumulate too much private wealth, indirectly represses all temptations to suicide among the middling and higher classes. As to the crime of homicide, we may always expect to find it most prevalent among the most ignorant portion of every community. Russia presents no exception to this rule. In proportion to their numbers the rich are as frequently guilty of murder as the poor, except in those cases where an act of robbery is meditated, but which, from the resistance offered by the party assailed, unexpectedly terminates in murder. Not so with homicide, which precludes all deliberation in its commission, and is mostly the consequence of violent passion, produced or fostered by drunkenness.  In 1832 the number of Universities in Russia was ten—namely, in St. Petcrsburigh, in Moscow, in Charkow, Kozou,. in Dorpat, in Kijew, in Witepsk, in Odessa, in rifles, and in Siberia. The following is a synopsis of the general state of education in the Russian empire, as regards both Universities and schools of every description:— Universities _  Number of Professors employed in the five first abovenamed, the others, being not yet organized Number of Students Left she Universities, having taken degrees Left without degrees IE33 Numbers of Lyceums and Gymnases in Russia 5l Number of Common Schools Number of Masters in all Number of Scholars in all  The Universities of `Vilna and Warsaw, together with several literary institutions of great merit, have been suppressed, by order of the Emperor, since the close of the Polish struggle of 1830. According to the official tables published by M. UwA allow, Minister of Public Instruction, education is retrogading in Russia since 1830, while in Poland it is now all but extinct. In 1833, there were but 582 parish and village school and 40.1 boarding schools in the whole empire—or not more than half so many as there are in the City of London alone ! In Poland, in 1831, not more than between six and seven thousand children—most of them Russians—enjoyed the benefit of being permitted to learn the very rudiments of education. The system remains unchanged, as it is hardly necessary to observe, that what is termed a Collegiate or University course of education in Russia, is not much calculated to raise men in the scale of moral being. The sciences of Political Economy, Politics, and Jurisprudence, are wholly omitted, and in their room the students are taught a little barbarous latin, strategy, and the ritual of the Greek Church.  Owing to the stormy state of the weather the French and German mails, due on Sunday night, have not yet arrived. We are therefore without any intelligence from the Continent. Should the packets arrive before post hour this evening, we shall give whatever important news they bring in a second edition.  CHANGES 01, MINISTRY IN frequent change of Ministers