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According to the returns of the last Census (1897) the number of illiterate inhabitants varies in the country from 89.2 per cent. (province of Kars) to 44.9 (government of St. Petersburg); in towns, from 63'6 (government of Penza) to 460 (government of Vologda), and 372 (government of St. Petersburg).

The contributions of the Holy Synod and of the different ministries for educational purposes in the budget estimates for 1905 appear as follows: Ministry of Instruction, 43,068,486 roubles; Holy Synod, 12,731,425; Ministry of War and of Navy, 13,516,405; Ministry of Agriculture, 2,791,691; Ministry of Finance, 2,288,709; other ministries, 1,248,305. Total, 75,645,021 roubles. Of the contributions of the Ministry of Instruction, 4, 668,843 roubles are for the universities, 11,463,659 roubles for the middle schools of this ministry, and 12,200,886 roubles for primary schools.

Justice and Crime.

The administration of justice was reformed by law of November 1864, which instituted assize courts with juries; elective justices of peace with functions similar to those of English magistrates; assemblies of justices of peace, before which appeals from judgments of individual magistrates might be brought; appeal courts for re-hearing cases not tried by jury. Above all these courts was the Court of Cassation, which formed part of the Senate. This system never became general throughout the Empire, a reaction having soon begun. The examining magistrates, who ought on principle to have been irremovable, were very rarely confirmed in their office, and the investigation of criminal cases was entrusted to magistrates temporarily appointed. By law of May 20, 1885, the principle of irremovability was restricted; by laws of May 9, 1878, and July 7, 1889, the assistance of a jury in certain cases was suppressed. A law of July 12, 1889, abolished elective justices of peace, putting in their places, in the country districts, the country chiefs, and, in the towns, the urban justices; in both cases the appointments being made by the Minister of Justice. Justices of peace have been retained only in the two capitals and in six of the largest towns of the Empire.

Reformed tribunals, but without juries, were introduced in Poland in 1875; in the Baltic Provinces in 1889; in the Governments of Ufa, Orenburg, Astrakhan, and Olonets in 1894; and in Siberia in 1897. The reformed system of justice was extended over Turkestan, the Provinces of the Steppes, the north-eastern districts of Vologda, and the Transcaspian Province in 1898 and 1899. The tribunals of the days anterior to 1864 have thus everywhere disappeared.

In conjunction with the assemblies of the Volost and Gmina (see Local Government), are cantonal tribunals, consisting of from four to twelve

judges elected at cantonal assemblies. Injuries and offences of every kind, as well as disputes relating to property between the peasants, not involving more than a hundred roubles, come under the jurisdiction of these popular tribunals. Affairs of more importance, up to 300 roubles, were judged, up to 1899, by Judges of Peace, appeal against their judgments could be made to the 'S'yezd,' or gathering of judges of the district, and further to the Senate. In 1889 an important change was made in the above organisation. Justices of Peace have been replaced in twenty provinces of Central Russia by Chiefs of the District (zemskiy nachalnik), nominated by the administration from among candidates taken from the nobility, recommended by the nobility, and endowed with wide disciplinary powers against the peasants; in the cities, except St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa, special 'town magistrates' (gorodskoi sudia), nominated in the same way, are to take the place of the former Justices of Peace. As to the peasants' tribunals (volostnoi sud), they are placed in direct subjection to the 'Chiefs of the Districts.' The same measure was extended in 1890 and 1891 over all the provinces endowed with provincial institutions (zemstvos). A new Peasants' Administration and Peasants' Chiefs were introduced in Siberia (law of June 2, 1898).

The appeal courts are thirteen: 10 in European Russia and Caucasus (at St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov, Odessa, Kazan, Saratov, Kiev, Vilna, Warsaw, and Tiflis), and 3 in Asiatic Russia (at Tashkent, Irkutsk, and Omsk). There are 104 assize courts: 88 in European Russia and 16 in Asiatic Russia.

Number of cases tried by the appeal courts in 1902, 48,366; by the assize courts, 309,675 (1902).

The following table gives the number of persons condemned, acquitted, and discharged from prosecution in 1902 :

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In general, crime is more common in towns than in the country; in the former there are about 93 convictions per 100,000 of population, in the latter about 38 per 100,000.

According to the last report of the Chief Administration for Prisons the Russian Empire had, in 1901, 885 prisons (of which 134 were in Poland). The number of persons imprisoned during the year 1901 appears as follows::

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In the course of 1901, 620,956 persons left the prisons or changed their category (550,917 men and 70,039 women), so that on January 1, 1902, the prison population numbered 88,851 (80,782 men and 8,069 women), distributed as follows:-lock-ups in European Russia, 64,107; lock-ups in Poland, 6, 401; correction houses, 10, 179; hard labour prisons, 4,767; depôts, 3,297. The highest number attained on a given day in all prisons was 116,713 inmates. For exile to Siberia, 2,098 persons (1,570 men and 528 women) reached the prison of Tyumen during the year 1901; of these 530 (503 men and 27 women) were hard labour convicts, 473 (446 men and 27 women) condemned to exile by courts, 115 (110 men and 5 women) fugitives, 46 condemned belonging to privileged classes, 209 (204 men and 5 women) exiled by order of peasant administration, 715 persons (7 husbands, 209 wives, and 499 children) following the exiles.

In the convict island of Sakhalin on January 1, 1902, there were 5,663 hard labour convicts, 9,885 released convicts and exiles, and 8,712 exiled peasants to these must be added 1,753 wives and 6 husbands, who had followed the exiles with 10,472 children, and the free settlers who numbered 1,344. The expenditure for prisons is estimated in the budget for 1905 at the sum of 15,753,958 roubles to be contributed by the Ministry of Justice, to which the prison administration has been transferred from the Ministry of Interior by the law of December 25, 1895.

Finance.

I. STATE FINANCE.

The annual financial budget is usually published on January 14, 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 Administration; and the extraordinary revenue (loans, war indemnity, &c.) and expendi. ture (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 1894-1903.

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Roubles

Roubles

Roubles

Roubles Roubles 1894 1,157,110,241 1,045,512,088 +99,840,276 75,226,335 101,423,380 1895 1,255,818,781 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 42,591,539 195,653,468 1898 1,584,854, 445 1,358,275,496 +226,578,900 87,817,835 413,935,536 1899 1,673,313,062 1,468,221,000+205,407,000 179,202,000 318,730,000 1900 1,704,128,506 1,555, 427,622 +148,700,884 32,568,983 333,788,515 1901 1,799,457,155 1,664,887,251 +134,569,904 163,915,915 209,369,808 1902 1,905,404,442 1,802,140,039 +103,264,403 202,148, 326 365,035,637 1903 2,031,800,814 1,883,026,336 +148,774,478 170,907,327 224,842,480

The actual ordinary revenue and expenditure for 1903, given in the Memoir presented by the Control to the Council of the State in October 1904, and the estimated revenue and expenditure for 1904 and 1905 were as follows (10 roubles = £1, or exactly 9,385 roubles 1,0007.)

Sources of Revenue
(Ordinary and extra-
ordinary)

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