RUSSIAN PROGRESS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 15, 6 May 1871, Page 8

RUSSIAN PROGRESS.

It is not too much to assert that Russia has made more real progress during the fifteen years which have passed since the signing of the treaty of Paris than in the whole of the long period between that date and the death of Peter the Great. At the time of the Crimean war Kussia had only 419 miles of railway ; she has now at the very lowest estimate, 7123. In 1855 only three cities in the whole empire, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa, were even tolerably paved or lighted ; and now almost every second-rate provincial town can boast a moderately good pavement of its own, and the new Russian Gas Company is one of the most flourishing in the empire. In 1855 the total number of factories in European Russia was 17,536, representing a yearly value of 350 millions of roubles, or about £45,000,000; the estimates for 1867, considerably surpassed since that time, give an aggregate of 23,721 factories, with an annual yield of 500 millions of roubles (£70,000,000). The iniquities of the legal system of that day, carried on according to the obsolete forms of mediaeval law, were almost too monstrous for belief, whereas trial by jury is now an established institution, and the Russian Bar contains many men equally noted for their forensic ability and incorruptible conscientiousness. In 1855 the Russian soldier's term of service extended over the enormous space of twenty-five years, and various cruel and degrading punishments were in use in the Imperial army ; the present term is limited to ten years, and only one man has " run the gauntlet" in St. Petersburg since the time of the emancipation. In 1855 twenty-three millions of Russians, considerably over a third of the entire population of Russia Proper, were slaves adscripti glehce; whereas now serfdom is abolished, and the freedmen number iu their ranks several of the ablest merchants, and at least one of the best provincial magistrates now living. The passport system, the arrangements of the post-office, and the administration of the provinces, have all been subjected to extensive reforms ; the official tyranny which was so marked and so offensive a characteristic of Russia during the last reign is now repressed ; while the Russian Press, though still hampered by several absurd restrictions, unquestionably enjoys a much greater amount of freedom than heretofore,