CRIME IN RUSSIA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 13685, 20 May 1912, Page 7

CRIME IN RUSSIA.

£2,933,000 IN BRIBES

Amazing Revelations,

Sensational lawsuits arc fast blunting the sensibilities of the Russian public. Eroni line end of the Empire 1o the oilier dissolving views tf utter wiekediuvs and heinous triine are unfolding themselves to the weary gaze of a curious but uurfeued generation. In tne province of Eharkoff a caum celebrc in which churches were sold has ju»t been terminated. In St. Petersburg a railway ease in coming to a close which shows hem enormous sums of mo le,. “slack ’ to the official hands through which they should have passed. Astounding revelations of bribery an 1 corruption are contained iu the 'indictment against seven former members of the Central Administration of the Army Supply Department, whose trial has jusi begun in tbe St. Petersburg Military dis tr.et Courf. The charges cover tie ]er hod 1905-1910, and many of the abuses were consequently perpetrated daring the Russo-Japanese War. Perhaps the most amazing proof of the then existing demoralisation is contained in a petition addressed to the Minister for War, in August, 1903, by Messrs tied, a firm which is said to have spent ■£2,000,000 on bribery in the course o' twenty-five years, Tffcy were anxious that the Government should acquire their fae lory. One of the reasons they gave wathat “formerly, before the Senatorial ie-

•. isioiis existed, the good relations bevteen the intendants (supply officers) and .he contractors were maintained, if not by means which were always legal at least by the only possible means unde.the prevailing conditions. Senator Garin is now subjecting us to all the unpleasant consequences of an investigation. Formerly, we could at least count upon the frequent illegal proceedings of the officials and make our arrangements accordingly. ' M. Tiel related that one of the staff officers whom, he frequently invited tu dinner almost invariably brought some o' his “lady friends’' with him and asked bis host to lend them money. At Ti “! said that some of his restaurant bi.l-

amounted to as much as j£7o, including , liqueur brandy costing ,£lO a bottle. \ In Petrokuw—a sleepy old town in Poland—the tribunal is dealing with a veritable chamber of horrors. A number of Catholic monks resident in the holies! of monasteries, whither tens of thousands of pious people pilgrimage every year, are being tries! for murder, immorality, sacrilege, embezzlement, al>d what the Lnglish monks of Abbot Samson’s days were wont to summarise as taeenda. The revoi-mg scenes of unholy love and jealous violence, of which the onlooker catches straw glimpses within the walls of that little Court of Justice, demand the pens of a Lucian and Juvenal combined. A SUPPOSED RITUAL MURDER. But there is another case winch, although it has not yet come into court, ialready casting its dark shadow over things and people and causing painful anj xities among the Jews. It is the alleged j ritual murder which took place in Kioff I over a twelvemonth ago. A little Christ- ! ian boy named Yushtshinsky was found I dead with forty-seven wounds in his body. which were evidently inflicted with sonic , sharp instrument like a knife. There was also a mark round the neck which seemed to point to the child having been strangled. Tho medical experts hold that the death.

v.-liich, presumably, was veiy slow, ha' 1 boon caused by the knife wounds, and that the marks of strangulation were made subsequently and for the purp.o;e of throwing the police off the scent. Ftr more than a year the police have been at work studying the question and moving heaven and earth to elucidate th‘> mystery. And now, at last, there is an accused, and indictment, and the certitude of a trial.

utranwhilo excitement borders on pas siou. The anti-Semites are preparing fo 1 '‘revelations,” while the Judopliilea are working day and night to rebut the terrible accusations hurled indirectly at their community. The Jews issued a book written to 1 show that ritual murder was impossible among them, and they are now distributing the work gratis to the judges tho possible jurymen, the counsel, and the witnesses in tho coming ease. And the-press,, which favours them, is working hard to show that there has never in history boon a shred of evidence in suppoit of the ealuminous charge that the Jew's commit wilful murder by way of a religious sacrifice. Look at Russian Orthodoxy. It is perhaps the mildest form of Christianity known to history. Persecution has never sullied its record. Toleration has always been one of its essential characteristics And yet, sects have sprung up oven in that excellent soil, the doings of whin’ l sear the souls of all good men—sects which mutilate their members, sect; which encourage suicide, sects which preach deliberate murder with tho accent of tho victim, sects which doom the devout man or woman to be buried alive. And they exist at this very moment in spite of the austere teachings of the Church and the vigilance and severity of the State. And if these forms of religious degeneration are possible in tho mildest of Christian Churches, how can a Jew seriously maintain a priori and with infallible certitude that no such religious abortions arc possible among his co-religioni.-.ts? The bulk of the wtnesscs and experts summoned to give evidence at the coming trial know nothing whatever about the murder. All that they will be asked is whether, in their opinion, the Mosaic creed in any of its phases enjoin* or allows ritual murders. Hut the unique question to be triwi, say Russians, is whether tho prisoner at the bar is guilty of having taken tts« life of the hoy Vushtshinsky, and, it so, did lie slay him in an outburst of passion or with malice prepense?