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Stevenson is to be congratulated on having touched the core of it. I may do him injustice, but it is, however, here, not the profundity of the idea which strikes me so much as the art of the presentation-the extremely successful form. There is a genuine feeling for the perpetual moral question, a fresh sense of the difficulty of being good and the brutishness of being bad, but what there is above all is a singular ability in holding the interest. I confess that that, to my sense, is the most edifying thing in the short, rapid, concentrated story, which is really a masterpiece of concision. There is something almost impertinent in the way, as I have noticed, in which Mr. Stevenson achieves his best effects without the aid of the ladies, and "Dr. Jekyll" is a capital example of his heartless independence. It is usually supposed that a truly poignant impression cannot be made without them, but in the drama of Mr. Hyde's fatal ascendency they remain altogether in the wing. It is very obvious-I do not say it cynically-that they must have played an important part in his development. The gruesome tone of the tale is, no doubt, deepened by their absence; it is like the late afternoon light of a foggy winter Sunday, when even inanimate objects have a kind of wicked look. I remember few situations in the pages of mystifying fiction more to the purpose than the episode of Mr. Utterson's going to Dr. Jekyll's to confer with the butler, when the doctor is locked up in his laboratory and the old servant, whose sagacity has hitherto encountered successfully the problems of the sideboard and the pantry, confesses that this time he is utterly baffled. The way the two men, at the door of the laboratory, discuss the identity of the mysterious personage inside, who has revealed himself in two or three inhuman glimpses to Poole, has those touches of which irresistible shudders are made. The butler's theory is that his master has been murdered, and that the murderer is in the room, personating him with a sort of clumsy diabolism. "Well, when that masked thing like a monkey jumped from among the chemicals and whipped into the cabinet, it went down my spine like ice." That is the effect upon the reader of most of the story. I say of most rather than all, because the ice rather melts in the sequel, and I have some difficulty in accepting the business of the powders, which seems to me too explicit and explanatory. The powders constitute the machinery of the transformation, and it will probably have struck many readers that this uncanny process would be more conceivable (so far as one may speak of the conceivable in such a case), if the author had not made it so definite.

I have left Mr. Stevenson's best book to the last, as it is also the last he has given, at the present speaking,* to the public- the tales comprising "The Merry Men" having already appeared; but I find that, on the way, I have anticipated some of the remarks that I had intended to make about it. That which is most to the point is that there are parts of it so fine as to suggest that the author's talent has taken a fresh start, various as have been the impulses in which it had already indulged, and serious the impediments among which it is condemned to exert itself. There would have been a kind of perverse humility in his keeping up the fiction that a production so literary as "Kidnapped" is addressed to immature minds; and though it was originally given to the world, I believe, in a "boy's paper," the story embraces every occasion that it meets to satisfy the higher criticism. It has two weak spots, which need simply to be mentioned. The cruel and miserly uncle, in the first chapters, is rather in the tone of superseded tradition, and the tricks he plays upon his ingenuous nephew are a little like those of country conjurers; in these pages we feel that Mr. Stevenson is thinking too much of what a "boy's paper" is expected to contain. Then the history stops without ending, as it were; but I think I may add that this accident speaks for itself. Mr. Stevenson has often to lay down his pen for reasons that have nothing to do with the failure of inspiration, and the last page of David Balfour's adventures is an honorable plea for indulgence. The remaining five-sixths of the book deserve to stand by "Henry Esmond," as a fictive autobiography in archaic form. The author's sense of the English idiom of the last century, and still more of the Scotch, have enabled him to give a gallant companion to Thackeray's tour de force. The life, the humor, the color of the central portions of “ Kidnapped” have a singular pictorial virtue; these passages read like a series of inspired foot-notes on some historic page. The charm of the most romantic episode in the world though perhaps it would be hard to say why it is the most romantic, when it was intermingled with so much stupidity-is over the whole business, and the forlorn hope of the Stuarts is revived for us without evoking satiety. There could be no better instance of the author's talent for seeing the actual in the marvelous, and reducing the extravagant to plausible detail, than the description of Alan Breck's defense in the cabin of the ship, and the really magnificent chapters of "The Flight in the Heather." Mr. Stevenson has, in a high degree (and doubtless for

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Since the above was written, "Underwoods," as well as "Memories and Portraits," has been published.

good reasons of his own), what may be called objurgations in the Scottish character. Such the imagination of physical states, and this has a scene as the episode of the quarrel of the enabled him to arrive at a wonderfully exact two men on the mountain-side is a real stroke notation of the miseries of his panting Low- of genius, and has the very logic and rhythm land hero, dragged for days and nights over of life- -a quarrel which we feel to be inevihill and dale, through bog and thicket, with- table, though it is about nothing, or almost out meat or drink or rest, at the tail of an nothing, and which springs from exasperated Homeric Highlander. The great superiority nerves and the simple shock of temperaments. of the book resides, to my mind, however, in The author's vision of it has a profundity the fact that it puts two characters on their which goes deeper, I think, than “ Dr. Jekyll.” feet in an admirably upright way. I have paid I know of few better examples of the way genmy tribute to Alan Breck, and I can only re- ius has ever a surprise in its pocket - keeps an peat that he is a masterpiece. It is interesting ace, as it were, up its sleeve. And in this case to observe that, though the man is extravagant, it endears itself to us by making us reflect that the author's touch exaggerates nothing; it is, such a passage as the one I speak of is in fact throughout, of the most truthful, genial, iron- a signal proof of what the novel can do at its ical kind, full of penetration, but with none of best and what nothing else can do so well. the grossness of moralizing satire. The figure In the presence of this sort of success we peris a genuine study, and nothing can be more ceive its immense value. It is capable of a charming than the way Mr. Stevenson both rare transparency it can illustrate human sees through it and admires it. Shall I say affairs in cases so delicate and complicated that he sees through David Balfour? This that any other vehicle would be clumsy. To would be, perhaps, to underestimate the den- those who love the art that Mr. Stevenson sity of that medium. Beautiful, at any rate, is practices he will appear, in pointing this incithe expression which this unfortunate though dental moral, not only to have won a particcircumspect youth gives to those qualities ular triumph, but to have given a delightful which combine to excite our respect and our pledge. Henry James.

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What woe, what fear, wrung thy.dumb soul with pain!
In darkling space down dropt the red sun, slain,

With all his banners drooping. Far and wide
Spread desolation's vast and blackening tide.
How couldst thou know that day would dawn again?

But the long hours wore on, till lo! pale gleams
Of faint, far glory lit the eastern skies,

Broadening and reddening till the sun's full beams
Broke in clear, golden splendor on thine eyes.

Darkness and brooding anguish were but dreams,
Lost in a trembling wonder of surprise!

Even so, O Life, all tremulous with woe,

Thou too didst cower when, without sound or jar,
From the high zenith sinking fast and far,

Thy sun went out of heaven! How couldst thou know

In that dark hour, that never tide could flow

So ebon-black, nor ever mountain-bar

Breast night so deep, without or moon or star,
But that the morning yet again must glow?

God never leaves thee in relentless dark.

Slowly the dawn on unbelieving eyes

Breaketh at last. Day brightens,— and, oh hark!

A flood of birdsong from the tender skies!

From storm and darkness thou hast found an ark,
Shut in with this great marvel of surprise!

Julia C. R. Dorr.

THE RUSSIAN PENAL CODE.

N the formation of a judgment with regard to the character of a people, or the nature of a government, few considerations are of greater importance than those which are suggested by the crimes that the people commit and the punishments that the government inflicts. The penal code of a state is in a certain sense an index to the national life, since it not only reveals the nature of the disorders from which the social organism suffers and the methods of treatment to which the governing power resorts, but also shows approximately the stage of moral culture and enlightenment which the people have reached and the extent of the influence for good or evil which the ruling authorities exert. It is my purpose in the present paper to review briefly some of the salient features of the penal code of Russia, and to point out, as clearly as I can, the bearing which that code seems to me to have upon the social condition of the Russian people, the distinctive characteristics of the Russian system of government, and the causes that underlie Russian discontent and disorder.

The Russian penal code, as revised, amended, and republished at St. Petersburg in 1885, makes a compact octavo volume of nearly seven hundred pages. In the arrangement of its contents it is not unlike the volume known as the Revised Statutes of the United States. The crimes and offenses with which it deals are grouped into twelve principal classes, each of which corresponds roughly with what is called in the Revised Statutes a "Title." These groups, or "titles," are subdivided into chapters, varying in number from two to fourteen, and the chapters are in turn broken into sections, the latter being numbered continuously, as in the Revised Statutes, without reference to the larger subdivisions of the text. The scope of the code, the manner in which offenses are classified, and the proportion which each separate category of crime and punishment bears to the whole body of criminal law will be understood from the following syllabus: TITLE I. Crimes and offenses in general and degrees of guilt. 175 sections.

* I use the words "church" and "state" throughout this article in a somewhat restricted sense to mean in one case the sacerdotal hierarchy, and in the other the political mechanism as embodied in the official class. It is impossible to speak of the church as a collective

TITLE II. Crimes against the Faith [religion] and violations of the ordinances for its safeguard. 65 sections.

TITLE III. Crimes against the State, viz.: treason, rebellion, and all offenses against the sacred persons of the sovereign emperor and the members of the imperial house. 23 sections.

TITLE IV. Crimes and offenses against administrative order. 67 sections.

TITLE V. Crimes and offenses committed in the imperial or public service. 178 sections. TITLE VI. Violations of the ordinances relating to the duties and obligations which individuals owe to the imperial and local authorities. 43 sections.

TITLE VII. Crimes against the property and revenues of the state. 283 sections.

TITLE VIII. Crimes against social order and well-being. 574 sections. [This title does not include offenses committed by one person against another, such as assault, robbery, or murder, but merely offenses which have the nature of disobedience to certain general ordinances intended to promote the public welfare.]

TITLE IX. Violations of the laws which relate to the rights of station, rank, position, etc. 44 sections. [This title comprises such offenses as the fraudulent concealment of the name and rank of an infant, the illegal assumption of titles, decorations, or other marks of distinction, etc.]

TITLE X. Crimes against the life, well-being, freedom, and honor of private individuals. 263 sections.

TITLE XI. Crimes against family and domestic rights. 51 sections. [This title includes all violations of the laws that relate to marriage and divorce, and to the reciprocal duties of fathers, mothers, and children, guardians and wards, etc.]

TITLE XII. Crimes and offenses against the property of private persons. III sections.

The intention of the codifiers in making this classification of crimes seems to have been to arrange them as far as practicable in the order of their estimated gravity or importance. Offenses against church and state* are therefore given the first place, and crimes which merely affect the life, liberty, and honor of body of believers when church membership is enforced by imprisonment and exile; and it is equally impossible to make the state include the people when every attempt of a citizen to take part in the life of the state is punished with penal servitude.

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private citizens come last. Crimes which have a tendency to weaken the dominant authority of church and state are furthermore given a disproportionate amount of space, as compared with crimes which threaten merely the lives or property of private persons. All the provisions of law contained in the first seven titles, and most of those in the eighth and ninth, have a direct bearing upon the welfare of the state as a political organism, and are intended to guard its existence, confirm its supremacy, and tighten the grasp in which it holds its subjects, the people. Almost every human action that can by any possibility injure the state or weaken the power of the ruling authorities is made by law a crime, and is punished with extreme if not barbarous severity. That this is not too sweeping an assertion will, I think, abundantly appear from the citations which I shall presently make from the statutes themselves.

The first important title or division of the Russian penal code is that which comprises what are called "Crimes against the Faith," and the severity with which such crimes are punished furnishes a striking illustration of the importance which the state attaches to the church as the chief bulwark of its own authority. The first section, which may be taken as fairly indicative of the spirit of the whole title, is as follows:

"SECTION 176. Whoever dares with premeditation, and publicly in a church, to blaspheme [literally, to lay blame upon'] the glorious Triune God, or our Most Pure Ruler and Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, or the illustrious Cross of the Lord God Our Saviour Jesus Christ, or the Incorporeal Heavenly Powers, or the Holy Saints of God and their Images, such person shall be deprived of all civil rights and exiled for life, with not less than twelve nor more than fifteen years of penal servitude. If such crime shall be committed not in a church but in a public place, or in the presence of a number of assembled people, be that number large or small, the of fender shall be deprived of all civil rights and exiled for life, with not less than six nor more than eight years of penal servitude."

The next section, which deals with another aspect of the same crime, is as follows:

"SECTION 177. If the offense described in the foregoing section [No. 176] be committed not in a public place nor before a large assemblage of people, but nevertheless in the presence of witnesses, with an intention to shake the faith of the latter or lead them astray, the offender shall be deprived of all civil rights and exiled for life to the most remote part of Siberia."

Section 178 provides that" Whoever, with

premeditation, in a public place and in the presence of a large or small assemblage of people, dares to censure [or condemn] the Christian faith, or the orthodox church, or to revile [or abuse] the Sacred Scriptures or the Holy Sacraments [literally, 'mysteries'], such person shall be deprived of all civil rights and exiled for life, with not less than six nor more than eight years of penal servitude. If such crime shall be committed not in a public place nor in the presence of an assemblage of people, but nevertheless before witnesses, and with an intention to shake the latter's faith and lead them astray [literally, 'to seduce them'], the offender shall be deprived of all civil rights and exiled for life to the most remote part of Siberia."

Section 179 declares that if any person shall witness or have personal knowledge of the commission of the crimes set forth in sections 176-178, and shall fail to inform the authorities thereof, he shall be imprisoned for not less than four nor more than eight months, according to the circumstances of the case.

Section 181 is as follows: "Whoever, in a printed work, or even in a written composition, if the latter be by him in any manner publicly circulated, indulges in blasphemy or speaks opprobriously of the Saints of the Lord, or condemns the Christian faith or the orthodox church, or reviles the Sacred Scriptures or the Holy Sacraments, such person shall be deprived of all civil rights and exiled for life to the most remote part of Siberia. The same punishment shall be inflicted upon all persons who knowingly sell, or in any other way publicly circulate such works or compositions."

Section 182 provides that "All persons who shall be found guilty of so-called scoffingthat is, of making sneering or sarcastic gibes that show manifest disrespect for the rules or ceremonies of the orthodox church, or for Christianity in general-shall be imprisoned for not less than four nor more than eight months." It would be hard, I think, to find in the criminal laws of any other civilized state punishments of such severity attached to crimes of such a nature. In most countries an insulting or contemptuous reference, even in a church and during service, to the " Incorporeal Heavenly Powers" [the angels] would be regarded merely as a misdemeanor, and would be punished with a small fine or with a brief term of imprisonment, as a disturbance of the public peace. In Russia, however, disrespectful remarks concerning the "Saints of the Lord and their Images," even although such remarks be made to three or four acquaintances, in the privacy of one's own house, may be punished with deprivation of all civil rights and exile for life to the most remote part of Siberia ”—

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that is, to the coast of the Arctic ocean in the territory of Yakutsk.

Such extraordinary penal legislation as this naturally suggests the inquiry: "What seems to be, in the estimation of the law-maker, the relative gravity of the offenses described in the sections above cited in comparison with such common-law crimes as assault, highway robbery, and murder?" An examination of the statutes contained in Titles VIII. and X. of the code shows that a sarcastic gibe at the expense of the orthodox church is as heinous a crime as a personal assault which ends in homicide, provided such assault is not made with homicidal intent. [Compare Section 182 with Section 1464.] Public censure or condemnation of the orthodox church is put on a penal level with the organization of a band of counterfeiters, robbers, or incendiaries. [Compare Section 178 with Section 924.] Finally, the punishment for blasphemous remarks made publicly in a church with regard to the "Incorporeal Heavenly Powers," or the "Saints of the Lord, and their Images," is precisely the same punishment which is prescribed for willful manslaughter, and is only one degree lighter than the penalty for the deliberate and premeditated murder of a pregnant woman, with full knowledge of her condition. [Compare Section 176 with Sections 1452 and 1455.] It is not my intention, of course, to excuse or to palliate such offenses as those set forth in the quoted sections of the Russian code, nor to raise any question as to the propriety of punishing them; but I do mean to call attention to what seems to me the barbarous injustice of putting such offenses on a level with highway robbery and murder. Russian churches and cathedrals are full of so-called "miracleworking images," or pictures of the Madonna and of various "Holy Saints of the Lord." I never entered even the cathedral of St. Isaac in St. Petersburg without finding on the frame of the ikon* of the Madonna, which stands at the head of two or three steps on the right of the ikonostas, a number of small articles of apparel, such as head kerchiefs, handkerchiefs, scarfs, etc., which had been placed there by their owners with the expectation that they would acquire, through contact with the ikon, some miraculous virtue. It would be perfectly natural for an intelligent man, and even for a good man and a good Christian, to express irreverent if not contemptuous doubt as to the miracle-working power of this gilded and bejeweled picture; and it would be strange if he did not, in addition, say something disrespect

* An ikon is a painted portrait of the Madonna, or of some holy saint of the orthodox church. It is, as a rule, heavily overlaid with gold in such a manner that only the head and one hand of the figure can be seen,

ful of a church which not only permits, but encourages, such delusions. Under the provisions of Section 177 of the penal code, such a man, for making such remarks, might be exiled for life to the remotest part of Siberia. In the summer of 1886, while visiting with my wife one of the holiest cathedrals in Moscow, I saw a number of ignorant Russian peasants devoutly kissing in succession twenty or thirty black decaying fragments of human bone which were set in the squares of what looked precisely like a checker-board. The bones were supposed to be finger joints, toe joints, and other osseous fragments of various "Holy Saints of the Lord"; and many of the peasants pressed their lips to every bone in the collection, taking them row by row successively, from the lower right hand to the upper left hand corner of the checker-board. As I watched this performance, I could not help expressing aloud to my wife an opinion with reference thereto which the ecclesiastical authorities would undoubtedly have regarded as blasphemous, and which, had I been a Russian, might have sent me to the most remote part of Siberia, if not into penal servi tude. Many of the rites and ceremonies of the Russo-Greek church are extremely injurious to the health of the people, and this is particularly the case with the universal custom of kissing sacred pictures and bones. Nothing probably has done more than this practice to spread contagious diseases among the ignorant peasants of the empire, and the terrible ravages of diphtheria in some of the provinces of European Russia are attributable mainly to this cause. A porous and partly decayed bone of a "Holy Saint of the Lord" which is breathed upon and kissed by thousands of men, women, and children becomes in time a poisonous source of contagion; and the encouragement by the priests of the belief that an application of the lips to such a bone is pleasing to God, or beneficial to man, seems to me in the highest degree immoral and criminal. If I were a Russian and lived in Russia, I should undoubtedly express this opinion at the first opportunity, in the most forcible and emphatic manner possible. Under the provisions of Section 177 I should thereupon be condemned as a blasphemer, and should go in chains and leg-fetters to the remotest part of eastern Siberia.

Blasphemous or disrespectful remarks concerning holy persons or things are not, however, the only offenses contemplated by Title II., and included among "Crimes against and it is often framed in solid gold or silver and richly jeweled. The "miracle-working" ikon of Our Lady of Kazan, in the Kazan Cathedral at St. Petersburg, is adorned with jewels to the value of $60,000.

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