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In 1896 there were 78 training schools for teachers with 5,233 pupils (4,867 male and 366 female). To the support of these schools the Imperial Treasury contributed 1,270,865 roubles; local authorities, 181,484 roubles; and private persons, 43,328 roubles.

The Press.-There were published in the Russian Empire (exclusive of Finland) in 1894 10,651 books, with an aggregate of 32,208,372 copies. Of these there were in Russian 8,082 works, 25,046,592 copies, the remainder being in different languages, the relative proportions being as follows in 1889-in Polish 723 works, 1,836,088 copies; Hebrew 474 works, 1,132,192 copies; German 377 works, 744,380 copies; Lettish 203 works, 767,570 copies; Esthonian 115 works, 544,410 copies.

In

Periodicals numbered 743 in 1892 (exclusive of Finland), in the following languages: 589 in Russian, 69 in Polish, 44 in German, 11 in Esthonian, 7 in Lettish, 9 in French, 5 in Armenian, 2 in Jewish, 3 in Georgian, 1 in Finnish, 2 in Russian, German, and Polish, 1 in Russian, German, and Lettish, 1 in Tartar and Russian, 1 in Russian and Turkish, and 1 in Russian and French. Tiflis, there were 12 periodicals: 4 Russian (7,600 copies), 3 Georgian (1,740 copies), and 5 Armenian (3,850 copies). By the end of 1894 the number of periodicals was 802 (dailies, 112; several times a week, 101; weeklies, 223; fortnightly and monthly, 280; several times a year, 86).

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 government of Arkhangelsk. In the above-named governments the Justice of Peace has been introduced, but the other tribunals remain in the old state. No juries are allowed in Poland and the Caucasus; the justices of peace are nominated by the Government in the provinces which have no zemstvos.

In Poland there are judges of peace in the towns only, their functions in the villages being performed by Gmina courts, elected by the inhabitants of the Gmina. Siberia has maintained the tribunals of old; in the Steppe Provinces there are district judges, while courts of higher instance are represented by the Justice Department of the provincial administration.

There were in 1891-2 appeal departments of the Senate, 10 high courts, 85 courts of first instance. There were besides-1,280 inquiry judges and 1,345 notaries; 2,126 actual and 3,652 honorary justices of peace. In the unreformed tribunals there were 604 judges, 129 public prosecutors, and 156 inquiry judges. By a law, dated June 21, 1889, the functions of the juries were limited to some extent, especially as regards the crimes committed by the representatives of nobility in their elective functions.

By a law of April 6, 1891, reformed courts as well as chiefs of districts have been introduced in the provinces of the Kirghize Steppes. In Siberia, the reformed Courts and trial by jury were introduced in 1897, and in Turkestan

in 1898.

The following figures (the most recent published) show for the year 1889 the activity of the 62 courts, 8 chambers of justice, and 1,107 enquiring magistrates of European Russia :-Number of prosecutions, 207,060 (73,850 pending from former years); prosecutions terminated, 125,924; affairs brought before the law courts 133,472 (ended 98,143); before the chambers of appeal 3,070 (ended 1,948); before the appeal courts of the Senate 2,008 (ended 1,726). Condemned by juries 20,952 men and women (hard labour and exile 3,580), without juries 16,984 (crimes against religion 672, murder 913, manslaughter 1,553); acquitted by juries 12,228, without juries 5,746. Prosecuted before the justices of peace 81,671; condemned 57,524.

In Poland (10 courts, 1 appeal chamber) were :-Prosecutions 41,892 (15,832 pending from former years); prosecutions terminated 22,731; affairs brought before law courts 29,356 (terminated 19,006); 3,174 appeals (ended 1,784); 211 appeal cases (ended 186). Condemned by law courts (without juries) 7,978 men and women (hard labour and exile 337; crimes against religion 45, murder 188, manslaughter 346); acquitted 4,276.

According to the last report of the Chief Administration for Prisons the Russian Empire had, in 1896, 888 prisons (of which 125 were in Poland), and the prison population on January 1, 1896, appeared as follows:

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In the course of 1896, 603,974 persons entered the prisons, and 613,976 left (each prisoner being counted several times as he is transferred from one prison to another), so that on January 1, 1897, the prison population numbered 75,654, distributed as follows:-lock-ups in Russia, 57,046;

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lock-ups in Poland, 6,348; hard labour prisons, 3,600; correction houses, 5,423; dépôts, 3,240. The highest figure attained on a given day in all prisons was 117,530 inmates, exclusive of the children. For exile to Siberia, 17,013 persons reached the prison of Tiumen (whence they are distributed over Siberia), and 7,971 were sent further east. Of the 16,077 prisoners brought to Tiumen in 1888, 2,000 were hard-labour convicts, the remainder being-runaways, 1,913; condemned to exile by courts, 3,119; exiled by order of Administration, 3,205 common law and 636 political exiles; women and children following exiles, 5, 184. In 1893, the percentage of exiles condemned by law courts was 51 p. c., and exiled by single order of the Administration, 49 p.c. In 1896, 1,699 convicts and persons sent into exile by order of the Administration were conveyed to the island of Sakhalin, on board steamers (36 children), as well as 186 women convicts and exiles and 294 women and children following their husbands and parents, and 150 con. victs for the Usuri railway. The average population of the hard-labour convict prisons was 14,613. Besides, about 1,000 children were kept in 21 reformatories. In the convict island of Sakhalin on January 1, 1896, there were 6,703 hard-labour convicts, and 8,433 released convicts and exiles; to these must be added 1,323 women who followed their husbands, with about 4,768 children; and the free settlers, who numbered 2,838. There were nearly 19,060 acres under culture (12,479 persons). Total Russian population, 29,004; indigenes, 6, 150. The actual expenditure for prisons reached in 1897 the sum of 13,414,578 roubles, of which only 876,000 roubles were obtained through the work of prisoners and convicts.

By the law of December 25, 1895, the prison administration has been transferred from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Justice, and it has been ordered to enter upon a thorough reform of the system of imprisonment and exile. The criminal code is also under revision.

Finance.

I. STATE FINANCE.

The annual financial budget is usually published on January 13, and since 1866 accounts of the actual revenue and expenditure are published by the Control Administration, after a minute revision of each item. It consisted until 1892, both for revenue and expenditure, of three separate parts: the ordinary revenue and expenditure; the 'recettes d'ordre' and 'dépenses d'ordre,' being transferences of sums among different branches of Administraion; and the extraordinary revenue (loans, war indemnity, &c.) and expenditure (railways, military, public works). The second heading has been abolished since 1892.

In accordance with a law of June 4, 1894, all expenditure for the re-armament of the army, special reserves of food, the building of new ports, as also upon the State's railways, is to be henceforward included in the ordinary expenditure, leaving expenditure for new railway lines only under the heading of extraordinary expenditure; while the military contributions (Turkey, Khiva) have been transferred to the ordinary revenue, leaving under the heading of extraordinary revenue only the money realised from loans, and the perpetual deposits at the Imperial Bank.

A new income tax (by classes) upon all trade establishments, factories, shareholders and co-operative societies, and incomes from industry and trade was introduced by the law of June 8, 1898.

The following table gives the total actual ordinary and extraordinary revenue and expenditure for each of the years 1886-97, in paper roubles, according to a report published by the Control of the Empire in the Official Messenger in December, 1898.

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1888

1889

Paper Roubles Paper Roubles Paper Roubles Paper Roubles Paper Roubles 873,560,748 836,992,477 +36,568,271 54,662,834 69,231,493 868,824,115 +45,702,706 53,161,540

914,526,821 80,456,102 1890 933,379,144 914,789,775 +18,589,369 94,858,076 123,901,207 1891 890,545,476 925,355,708 - 34,810,232 29,513,486 178,377,328 1892 964,687,095 952,575,764 +12,111,331 189,617,408 166,759,310 1893 1,031,489,740 996,392,639 +35,097,101 160,523, 630 47,702,806 1894 1,145,352,364 1,045,512,088 +99,840,276 75,226,335 101,423,380 ! 1895 1,244,362,202 1,129,439, 236 +114,922,966 153,068,740 366,634,470 1896 1,368,719,351 1,229,044,280 +139,675,071 43,500,457 255,308,655 1897 1,416,386,096 1, 299, 649,313 +116,736,783 42,591,539 194,948,911

1 Famine Year.

This table differs from the corresponding tables issued in previous years (1887-94) by the State Control, and given in the previous issues of this YEAR Book (with the exception of last two years) in the following: (1) All revenue which was commonly calculated in the budget estimates with a varying value of the paper rouble is now calculated at a uniform value of 1 rouble 50c. paper = 1 rouble in gold, and 1 rouble 50c. in silver; and (2) various items which were differently classed in former estimates, some of them in the ordinary and some others in the extraordinary budget, are classed, for all the ten years, according to the new classification adopted on June 4, 1894. Consequently in the table of ordinary expenditure new items have been introduced (railways, re-armament of the army and navy), which formerly were comprised in the extraordinary budget, but now are included in the ordinary expenditure.

The increase of revenue in ten years, 542,800,000 roubles (or 62 per cent.) is chiefly due to an increase in the revenue from new railways bought by the State (217,693,000), which is absorbed by the costs of exploitation and the payments on obligations. Another source of increase (77,200,000) was in the increased import duties, a third an increased excise on spirits (52,400,000), as also on tobacco, naphtha, sugar, and matches (altogether 80,200,000); and the remainder is due to an increase of direct taxes, State's domains, &c.

The actual ordinary revenue and expenditure for the last five years, as revised by the State's Control, are given as follows in the Memoir presented by the Control to the Council of the State in December, 1898, in thousands of roubles. They also are drawn in accordance with the law of June 4, 1894, and with the above-mentioned uniform value of the paper rouble.

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