RUSSIA IN EUROPE. 121 



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courts of justice were in general very corrupt, and those by whom it 

 was administered eitremely ignorant ; but the judicious regulations 

 of Catharine II, fixed a cei'tain salary to the office of judge, which 

 before depended on the contributions of the unhappy clients ; and 

 thus the poor were without hope or remedy. Many other improve- 

 ments have been made in the legal code by the present emperor. 



Tue Russians are remarkable for the severity ana variety of their 

 punishments, which are both inflicted and endured with a wonderful 

 insensibility. Peter the, Great used to suspend the robbers upon the 

 Volga, and other parts of "his dominions, by iron hooks fixed to their 

 ribs, on gibbets, where they writhed themselves to death, hundreds at 

 a time. The single and double knout have been inflicted upon la- 

 dies as well as men of quality. Both of them are excruciating : but 

 in the double knout the hands are bound behind the prisoner's backjj 

 and the cord being fixed to a pulley, lifts him from the ground, with 

 the dislocation of both his shoulders ; and then his back is in a man- 

 ner scarified by the executioner with a hard thong cut from a wild 

 ass's skin. This punishment has been so often lata), that a surgeon 

 generally attends the patient to pronounce the moment it should 

 cease. It is not always the number of the strokes,, but the method 

 of applying them, which occasions the death of a criminal ; for the 

 executioner can kill him in three or lour strokes, by striking him up- 

 on the ribs ; though persons are sometimes recovered, in a few 

 weeks, who have received three hundred strokes moderately inflict- 

 ed. The boring and cutting out of the tongue are likewise practised 

 in Russia ; and even the empress Elizabeth, though she prohibited 

 capital punishments, was forced to give way to the supposed necessi- 

 ty of those tortures. 



According to the strict letter of the law, there are no capital pu- 

 nishments in Russia, except in the case of high treason : but there 

 is much less humanity in this than has been supposed. For there 

 are many felons who expire under the knout; and others die of fa- 

 tigue in their journies to Siberia, and from the hardships they suffer 

 in the mines ; so that there is reason to believe that no fewer crimi- 

 nals suffer death in Russia than in those countries where capital pu- 

 nishments are authorised by the laws. 



Felons, after receiving the knout, and having their cheeks and 

 forehead marked, are sometimes sentenced for life to the public 

 works at Cronstadt, Vishnei Volotchok, and other places : but the 

 common practice is to send them into Siberia, where they are con- 

 demned for life to the mines at Nershink. There are, upon an aver- 

 age, from 1600 to 2000 convicts at these mines. The greatest part 

 are confined in barracks, excepting those who are married : the lat- 

 ter being permitted to build huts near the mines, for themselves and 

 families. The prohibition of the torture does honour to the late em- 

 press Catharine II. 



REVExuE....The revenue of Russia arises from the capitation tax, 

 or bead-rooney, the tax on the capital of merchants, the produce of 

 the imperial domains, the customs, the stamp-duties, the tax on ka- 

 baks or public-houses, the salt-trade, the mines, the mint, and other 

 taxes. It amounts, according to the latest and most authentic ac- 

 counts, to about $ 60,000,000. 



Wi.cr: this fvum is considered relatively, that is, according to the 



value of money in that empire, compared to its low value in. 



Great Britain, it will be found that the national revenue of Russia far 



Vol. I. R 



