Jews at Saratow. 1176 afterwards shown that there was no im- a local board called the Department of portant wound, certainly none that could Highways (which had jurisdiction in the have occasioned death, he said that al-matter), that board, in accordance with a though he had been present at the time of report of two officers of rauk, dated 30th the death, he did not know how it had been January, 1854, acquitted the accused, and caused, as he had lost consciousness at the declared the informers to be liars; and time, from horror, if I understand rightly, the military authorities seem to have genat the previous mutilation. tenced Bogdanow to corporal punishment for perjury. This decision was not satisfactory to the Ministry of the Interior. On the 6th of June, 1854, Mr. Lanskoi issued a second commission of inquiry, at the head of which he placed Mr. Guirs. To what result it was intended that this second commission should lead was soon made manifest. Almost simultaneously with its appointment, Kovshernikow, the vice governor of Saratow, who had disapproved of Durnowo's proceedings, was dismissed, and Durnowo was appointed to succeed him. Several other officers, civil and military, who had ventured to doubt the guilt of the accused, were also dismissed or removed to other stations; and thus the field was left free for the operations of the new commissioner and of the ex-commissioner, now appointed vice governor. And vigorous enough these operations were. The stick, and it would seem other and worse instruments, were used as auxiliaries in interrogating many of the numerous victims who had by this time been thrown into confinement; and indications of the result are to be found in several entries in the appendix to the Senate's report, of persons having "disappeared" and " suddenly died" in prison, which I understand to be Russian euphemisms for being tortured to death, or driven by suffering to suicide. After a long delay, of which no explanation has been furnished to me, the mass of evidence collected by Durnowo and Guirs was brought in 1858 before the Senate of Moscow; and notwithstanding the stringency of the means employed in obtaining it, was not thought to furnish sufficient grounds for condemning the accused. The Senate, on the 8th of June, 1858, decided that the prisoners were liable to suspicion of murder, but that their guilt was not clearly proved. The Senate accordingly recommended that they should be set at liberty. Against this decision Count Panin, then Minister of Justice, protested, not because he was of opinion that the evidence warranted a conviction, but because he thought that it did not even warrant suspicion, and that the accused ought to have been fully acquitted. In consequence of the difference between

So many indeed are the tales of each of these witnesses, that the report of the Senate of Moscow, to which I shall in a few moments refer, speaks of them as having at last, as it is translated to me, "fixed" or "settled down" upon one statement. It must, not however, be understood from this, that all the witnesses at last "settled down" upon one statement; but only that one statement was at last "settled down" upon by each witness, the final statement of each being, however, in important particulars both inconsistent with the final statements of others, and full of the wildest absurdities. These I must not detain the House by enumerating; but some few I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention. Bogdanow's statement, as relied on in the final sentence of the Council of the Empire, declared that he had caried the bodies of both boys from Jushkevitcher's dwelling to the Wolga. Lokotkow's statement, as cited in the same sentence, was that he had killed the second boy, and carried his body from the corn-warehouse to the Wolga, thus differing from Bogdanow, both as to the person by whom, and the place from which, the body of the murdered child had been carried to the river. Krüger accounted for his having been present at the murder of the second boy by saying that he (Krüger) had intended at the time to become a Jew himself, having been told by the soldier Schliffermann, that if he did, he should be made a rabbi. A woman, Gorochow (whose evidence is also relied on by the Council of State as corroborative of the guilt of the accused), stated that she had been told by Jushkevitcher's wife that both boys had been killed by being pierced in various parts of their bodies with a knife of a peculiar shape (the medical evidence, it will be remembered, showing that there was no wound of any importance); and, further, that Juskevitcher and Schliffermann had received for the murders six millions of roubles (or nine hundred thousand pounds sterling). This mass of extravagant and contradictory evidence having been brought at the beginning of 1854 before the military authorities at Saratow, and before

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more likely to have been written by a guilty than by an innocent man. Yet, as corroborative evidence of guilt was it treated by the Russian council. But, perhaps, the council's idea as to what might serve to corroborate the veracity of the accuser Bogdanow, is more singular still. Besides his various tales which I have already mentioned, this man at one time included in the charge of being one of his accomplices in the murders an army surgeon named Gubitski; but when last examined he admitted his accusation against the surgeon to be wholly unfounded. After referring to this, the decision of the council actually contends that "this circumstance very strongly brings to light the sincerity of the last statement." That is to say, in other words, that if a witness first makes, and then withdraws, a false charge against A., this circumstance does not weaken, but strengthens, the credibility of a charge which the same witness makes and persists in against B. Such is the logic of the Russian council. Whether the council was itself not quite satisfied with the arguments of which these are specimens, or for what other reason the

the views of the Senate and of the Minister, the question was again, after an unexplained delay, brought before the Council of the Empire. In March 1860, that council, not agreeing with the local tribunal which had acquitted the accused nor with the Minister of Justice who thought that they ought to be acquitted nor even with the Senate of Moscow, which had held that there was ground for suspicion, but not for conviction-proposed on the same evidence to decide that there was clear ground for their absolute condemnation. The draft of this proposed decision was communicated to Mr. Samiatnin, deputy of the Minister of Justice (an office which is, I believe, analogous to that of an Under Secretary of State). Mr. Samiatnin made a report, containing an elaborate examination of the evidence, in which he pointed out several of the contradictions and absurdities that I have mentioned, and a number of others with which I have not troubled the House, and he concluded that such evidence could properly lead to no other result than an acquital. The Council of the Empire, however, persisted in its first intention, condemned the accused, and sentenced Jush-execution of its sentence was delayed I kevitcher and Schlifferman, and a soldier named Jurlow (whom it treated as the three principal criminals) to loss of civil rights and hard labour in the mines of Siberia, in two cases for twenty, and in the third for eighteen years. It also sentenced others to minor penalties, whilst it suffered the perjured informers, who stated themselves to have been accomplices in the murders, to escape with almost nominal punishments.

I will not detain the House with any minute examination of the attempts at reasoning by which the Council of the Empire sought to refute the clear and convincing arguments of Mr. Samiatnin; but I can give two examples, which may be very briefly stated. The council treated, not indeed as one of the most convincing proofs, but as corroborative evidence against Jushkevitcher, a note which, after his arrest, he had written to his daughter, and in which he simply requested her to inform the Jewish congregation of his misfortune, in order that they might pray for deliverance from false accusations, adding "Be firm, my dearest daughter, I beg this of you and your brother.' To many persons this note may seem to have some touch of pathos; but I cannot perceive how any one could suppose that it was

do not know; but, in fact, it was not until May 1861, that the unhappy prisoners were despatched to the Siberian mines, where they are believed still to linger.

Since the decision of the Council of the Empire was pronounced, and in part since it was executed, changes have taken place in the Russian Government. Mr. Lanskoi is no longer Minister of the Interior. Count Bludow (who as Chancellor is considered to have been peculiarly responsible for the decision of the council, and one of whose last ministerial acts was, I lament to say, to appoint that very Mr. Guirs who presided over the second Saratow commission, to an important office peculiarly connected with the affairs of the Jews) is now travelling for the benefit of his health, and is not, I understand, likely to resume active employment. He has long served his country according to his own conscientious views; and as I certainly wish him no harm, I can only desire that his travels may be productive of as much benefit to himself, as I believe they will be to all, not being members of the Greek Church, who, if he had remained at home, would have been subject to his influence. But changes more important than those of a personal character have also taken place in the Russian Government. They have, as I

themselves. Well, he did not suppose SPIRIT LICENCES.-OBSERVATIONS. that the history of legislation contained a MR. LAWSON said, he rose to call more lamentable failure than the Beer Act. attention to the general dissatisfaction ex- The Committee of 1834 described the evils isting throughout the country regarding the of intoxication in the strongest language; Laws for licensing Houses for the sale of they described drunkenness as the cause of spirituous and fermented Liquors, and to the immense majority of the crimes comthe necessity for the immediate revision mitted in this country and one of the great thereof; also to the expediency and justice causes of the misery of the poor, and they of permitting the Inhabitants of any parish recommended the introduction by the Goor place to decide whether the common vernment of some general and comprehensale of such liquors shall be carried on sive law for the suppression of the existing within the locality. The question on facilities for intemperance. That was in which he wished to address the House fact a recommendation of the Maine law in was one of considerable importance. It all its integrity. Still stronger evidence was generally felt that the existing licens- was given before a Committee of the House ing system required considerable alteration, of Lords in 1850, but nothing was done. and during the present Session an immense Then there was the Committee of 1853, number of people had petitioned the House, presided over by the President of the Poor stating the grievance under which they Law Board; but still no legislation took lay, and suggesting the remedies which place. In 1860 the Chancellor of the they desired to see adopted. What he Exchequer, not satisfied with the trial of desired to do was to explain that grievance, free trade in beer established in 1830, and to point out the remedies referred to. suggested that an additional supply of wine The licensing system, in its present state, would make people sober; the wine duties could hardly be defended by any one. were reduced, and refreshment houses Almost all the hon. Gentlemen who might with wine licences were established; but be considered authorities in the House had he had not heard that the scheme of the spoken strongly against it, and their opi- right hon. Gentleman had done anything nions would carry more weight than any- towards checking drunkenness. In fact, thing he could say. The right hon. Gen- in the following year the quarter sestleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer sions in Lancashire presided over by the said, two years ago, that his opinion was noble Lord the Member for Lynn (Lord very unfavourable to the present system Stanley), agreed to a petition stating under which the drinking-houses were li- that the greater portion of the offences censed and managed in this country, and punished at petty sessions were attributable he went on to say that the present system to intoxication, and that the facility of obimposed upon magistrates duties which taining licences to sell intoxicating liquors it was impossible for them to discharge. increased the immorality of the people. The Secretary of State said, alluding to That position was carried by forty-six votes the evidence given before the Committee to one. In apite, however, of all the rein 1834, that a more efficient control commendations and petitions on the subought to be given over the licences of both ject, nothing had been done to apply a classes of houses, meaning public-houses remedy to this terrrible disease. Seeing and beer-houses. The Chairman of the that the Legislature did not take any Poor Law Board (Mr. Villiers), who was steps to prevent this great evil, a plan had the Chairman of that Committee, said that been suggested which had taken a great the magistrates themselves admitted that hold on the public mind. It was to have they had no proper evidence to guide their a permissive law enabling any town or opinion as to whether they should grant district, by a majority of two-thirds, to licences. Mr. W. Brown, who was at the prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors. time Member for South Lancashire, said Now, he held two things, first, that the that magistrates, magistrates' clerks, li- plan he had suggested of entirely prohibitcensed victuallers, and brewers, wereal ing the sale of liquors in any district would demoralized by the licensing system. be effectual; and, secondly, that it was Thirty years ago, when the Beer Act was just. With regard to the first point, they introduced, it was said that that measure found that crime and pauperism and lunacy would give working men good beer, and existed in any district almost in proporthat it would take them from dens of in- tion to the facility of obtaining intoxicatfamy to places where they would enjoying liquors. But they had illustrations of

the opposite state of things. Mr. James Gray, chairman of the Edinburgh parochial board, said at the Town Council, on the 23rd of October, 1849

"There are thirty-four parishes in Scotland without a public-house, and the effect upon the parishioners is that they have not a penny of poor rates in one of them."

He said that he once lived eight years in a parish where there was no public-house, and during all that period he never saw a person the worse for drink. There were no poor rates in the parish then; but now there were five public-houses and a poor rate of 1s. 8d. in the pound. Then the report of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland by their committee for the suppression of intemperance, dated 31st May, 1849, stated that

assume, but he thought it ought, at all events, to embody the principle for which he contended, which was supported by 200,000 people. He entreated the Home Secretary to consider during the recess whether he could not embody this principle in a Bill, to be introduced next Session, and he was convinced that by so doing the right hon. Baronet would promote the peace and prosperity and ensure the gratitude of thousands of his poorer fellow-countrymen.

It

MR. KER SEYMER said, he should be prepared to discuss the question more fully when the hon. Gentleman moved the second reading of the Permissive Bill. had long been prepared. It had been accepted at public meetings; and if the feeling in favour of the measure was as strong as the hon. Gentleman represented, the "The returns made to your Committee's inquiries clearly prove that the intemperance of House of Commons, unreformed though any neighbourhood is clearly proportioned to the it was, would not be deaf to the voice of number of its spirit licences, so that where there public opinion. The gentlemen out of are no public-houses nor any shops for selling doors who advocated the Maine Law spirits there ceases to be any intoxication." were not satisfied with the position which He thought it was just because he could they held. The organ of the Alliance see no injustice in permitting the inhabit- attempted last week to mislead its readers. ants of a parish to decide whether the He observed a paragraph in it, headed common sale of liquors should be carried" Mr. Lawson's Motion, in which Memon within their several localities. A hun-bers of Parliament were urged to be in dred years ago, he might add, great dis- their places to support the Motion, and tress prevailed, and a law had been passed ladies, it said, would do noble service, too, imposing a check upon distillation, the re- by writing to M.P.'s. The gentleman sult being that, notwithstanding the dear- were well versed in the arts of agitation, ness of provisions, the people were abso- but, unfortunately, there was no Motion lutely better off than in more prosperous before the House. The hon. Member on periods. These facts clearly showed the Friday night-the omnium gatherum night advantages of a prohibitory policy. It-called attention to the licensing system. might be said that such a law would be an inconvenience to many people. Why, of course, if it were not so, they would not want a law; but the inconvenience of a few ought not to be allowed to weigh against the wishes of the many. All the people asked, and all he asked for them, was the power to protect themselves from evils of the sale of intoxicating liquors. It might be said that this was a crotchet, but it was a crochet shared in by 200,000 people. From Glasgow there had been a petition signed by 27,000 persons in its favour, and from Lancashire one signed by 20,000. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department had, he believed, as good as promised that he would not allow another Session to pass away without taking some steps to alter the licensing system. He did not wish to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman what shape a measure for that purpose should

The words of the Motion were ingenious and mixed up very distinct things. It referred to the general dissatisfaction at the laws which regulated the sale of spirituous liquors. The dissatisfaction arose from the facts that the views of the Public-house Committee, of which he was a member, had not been adopted. Those views were very distinct from the views of the hon, Member. He still adhered to the opinion of that Committee. He was for free trade, as he understood it. He was for abolishing the present magisterial discretion, which the magistrates could not satisfactorily exercise. Under the present law, the beershop-keepers were kept in an inferior position, and that was the reason that the beershop system was a complete failure. The licensed victuallers, quite unconsciously, had often played the game of the Maine Law men. When a new man applied for a licence, they got up a memo