The maximum mortality was in Perm (45), Orenburg (44), Stavropol, Kuban, Nijni-Novgorod, Vladimir, and Don (above 40); and the minimum in Baku, Elisabethpol, Erivan, Vitebsk (16), and Courland (18). The maximum births were in Samara (59) and Perm (53), while in several provinces it was more than 50 in the thousand.

According to official statistics there was in Russia in Europe an excess of emigration over immigration in the case of Russians of 413,645 in ten years, 1876 to 1885; but the statistics are incomplete. Emigration is rapidly increasing. Of late the Russians, especially Jews, contributed a large part to the flow of emigrants into the United States; in Great Britain the Russians numbered in 1881 nearly as many as the French (15,271, much increased since). During the years 1871-85 8,767,605 foreigners entered Russia, but only 7,525,360 left, showing thus an immigra tion of 1,242,245 (563,345 Germans, 447,736 Austrians, 9,395 English, and nearly 100,000 Persians).

III. PRINCIPAL TOWNS.

The great majority of the population of Russia being agriculturists, they dwell in villages, and in 1885 the division of population in urban and rural, as also the division according to sex, appeared as follows:

The aggregate number of settlements reached, in 1885, 555,278 in the Russian provinces; of these 601 had municipal institutions. The following are the populations of the principal towns, mostly according to estimates of 1885, if not otherwise mentioned:

There are 34 more towns, with populations of from 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, in European Russia; and 164 towns with populations of more than 10,000 inhabitants.

Religion.

The established religion of the Empire is the Græco-Russian, officially called the Orthodox-Catholic Faith. It has its own independent synod, but maintains the relations of a sister Church with the four patriarchates of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. The Holy Synod, the board of government of the Church, was established with the concurrence of the Russian clergy and the four Eastern patriarchs.

The emperor is head of the Church; he appoints to every office in the Church, and is restricted only so far as to leave to the bishops and prelates the privilege of proposing candidates; and he transfers and dismisses persons from their offices in certain cases. But he has never claimed the right of deciding theological and dogmatic questions. Practically, the Procurator of the Holy Synod enjoys wide powers in Church

matters.

The points in which the Græco-Russian Church differs from the Roman Catholic faith are, its denying the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, its not enforcing the celibacy of the clergy, and its authorising all individuals to read and study the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue. With the exception of the restraints laid on the Jews, all religions may be freely professed in the Empire. The dissenters have been and are still, however, severely persecuted, though recently some liberty has been extended to those of the United Church.' It is estimated that there are more than 12,000,000

dissenters in Great Russia alone. The affairs of the Roman Catholic Church are entrusted to a Collegium, and those of the Lutheran Church to a Consistory, both settled at St. Petersburg. Roman Catholics are most numerous in the former Polish provinces, Lutherans in those of the 'Baltic, and Mohammedans in Eastern and Southern Russia, while the Jews are almost entirely settled in the towns and larger villages of the western and south-western provinces.

There are no exact figures as to the numbers of adherents of different creeds-many dissenters being inscribed under the head of Greek Orthodox; they are only estimated as follows:

Orthodox Greek Catholics (1886), without army and navy.
United Church and Armenians

Roman Catholics.

Protestants

Jews

Mohammedans

Pagans.

65,549,096

55,000

8,300,000

2,950,000

3,000,000

2,600,000

26,000

The Russian Empire is divided into 62 bishoprics (eparchiya) which, according to the last published report, were, in 1886, under 3 metropolitans 16 archbishops, and 43 bishops; the latter had under them 33 vicars; all of them are of the monastic clergy. The Greek Orthodox population of the 62 bishoprics in 1886 numbered 65,549,096, to which the Orthodoxes of the army and navy must be added. There were, same year, 44,111 churches, both public and private (out of which: cathedrals, 680; parish churches, 33,416; yedinovyertsy's, or nonconformists recognised by Church, 248, and 14,885 chapels), with 47,682 priests and deacons, and 42,353 cantors, &c. The monasteries numbered 484, and had 6,890 monks and 3,466 aspirants, and 198 nunneries with 6,037 nuns and 16,018 aspirants.

The Holy Synod has a capital of about 5,000,0007. sterling at its disposal, and the various churches received in 1886 11,327,529 roubles of donations, and 1,953,941 roubles from the Orthodox brotherhoods. The expenditure of the Synod in 1889 was: 13,967,551 roubles contributed by the Imperial budget (for schools, 1,740,260 roubles; Armenian clergy, 14,204 roubles; Catholic clergy, 1.549,102 roubles; Lutheran clergy, 121,282 roubles; Mussulman clergy, 50,955 roubles), and 6,834,294 roubles contributed by the Synod chiefly for schools. The total expenditure was 20,801,845 roubles.

Instruction.

Most of the schools in the Empire are under the Ministry of Public Instruction, and the Empire is divided into 14 educational districts (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Orenburg, Kharkoff, Odessa, Kieff, Vilna, Warsaw, Dorpat, Caucasus, Turkestan, West Siberia, and East Siberia). However, many special schools are under separate Ministries. The total contribution for education from the various Ministries was 38,023,417 roubles in the budget for 1889.

A new university was opened in 1888 at Tomsk, in Siberia, but it has only one faculty (medicine), with about 100 students. Finland has a university of its own (see Finland). Nearly 4,000 students are either supported by bursaries or dispensed from paying fees.

The high and middle schools of the Empire (including Finland) are given in the subjoined table :

The ladies' colleges, providing full University education, were closed by Imperial order in 1887-88. One of them has been reopened at St. Peters

burg.

The expenses for the middle schools are contributed by the State Exchequer to the amount of 52 per cent. of the aggregate expenditure for the gymnasia, progymnasia, and technical schools, the remainder being made up by fees (about 30 per cent.) and by donations of the zemstvos, the municipalities, and so on. The Cossack schools (gymnasia, &c., both for boys and girls) are maintained by the separate roiskos, which, moreover, maintain a number of their pupils in the governmental schools. The total expenditure of the roiskos for schools was 1,605,257 roubles in 1887. The Church contributed the same year the sum of 725,252 roubles, the costs for the schools under the Holy Synod being paid by either the Exchequer or the zemstvos and the village communities.

The education in Caucasia appeared as follows, according to the official report for 1888, issued by the School Administration:-There were in 1888 19 lyceums, gymnasia, and Realschulen, 5 normal schools, 16 high schools for girls, with a total of 10,056 pupils (6,036 boys, 4,020 girls); 31 town schools, 9 special schools, 5 indigenes' schools, with a total of 6,660 pupils; 104 private schools, with 3,813 pupils; 876 primary schools, with 51,529

pupils; 151 Armenian schools, with 11,129 pupils; 395 various schools, with 18,335 pupils; 2,046 Mussulman and Jewish schools, with 24,750 pupils. The statistics of primary education are as follows:

1 Figures for the Dorpat educational district wanting.

The total number of pupils in the schools of the Empire, exclusive of Finland, would appear in 1887 88 to be 2,472,627 (1,944,057 males, and 527,570 females); but these figures are incomplete. It thus appears that only 2 per cent. of the aggregate population are at schools, and in 1888 only 20 per cent. of the recruits could read and write.

Efforts have been made of late to spread technical education. A scheme of technical schools to be opened under the Ministry of Public Education was elaborated in 1888, and a scheme of commercial and industrial schools under the same Ministry was prepared in 1889, a first credit of 144,000 roubles having been granted for that purpose.

The Press.-There were published in the Russian Empire (exclusive of Finland) in 1888 7,427 books, with an aggregate of 23,103,272 copies. Of these there were in Russian 5,318 works, 17,395,050 copies; in Polish 716 works, 1,888,631 copies; Hebrew 343 works, 1,004,692 copies; German 311 works, 514,149 copies; Lettish 217 works, 707,050 copies; Esthonian 178 works, 794,850 copies.

Periodicals number 667 in 1889 (exclusive of Finland), in the following languages: 493 in Russian, 76 in Polish, 49 in German, 13 in Esthonian, 8 in Lettish, 7 in French, 6 in Armenian, 4 in Jewish, 4 in Georgian, 2 in Finnish, 1 in Russian and Polish, 1 in Russian, German, and Lettish, 1 in Russian and Turkish.

Justice and Crime.

The organisation of justice was totally reformed by the law of 1864 but the action of that law has not yet been extended to the governments of Olonets, Vologda, Astrakhan, Ufa, and Orenburg, and has been applied but in a modified form (in 1889) to the Baltic Provinces and the