at the temptations to dishonesty were difficult to resist.

The practice of choosing the judges by popular election was an attempt
to restore to the courts something of their old popular character; but
it did not succeed, for very obvious reasons. Popular election in a
judicial organisation is useful only when the courts are public and the
procedure simple; on the contrary, it is positively prejudicial when the
procedure is in writing and extremely complicated. And so it proved in
Russia. The elected judges, unprepared for their work, and liable to
be changed at short intervals, rarely acquired a knowledge of law
or procedure. They were for the most part poor, indolent landed
proprietors, who did little more than sign the decisions prepared for
them by the permanent officials. Even when a judge happened to have some
legal knowledge he found small scope for its application, for he rarely,
if ever, examined personally the materials out of which a decision
was to be elaborated. The whole of the preliminary work, which was in
reality the most important, was performed by minor officials under
the direction of the secretary of the court. In criminal cases, for
instance, the secretary examined the written evidence--all evidence
was taken down in writing--extracted what he considered the essential
points, arranged them as he thought proper, quoted the laws which ought
in his opinion to be applied, put all this into a report, and read the
report to the judges. Of course the judges, if they had no personal
interest in the decision, accepted the secretary's view of the case.
If they did not, all the preliminary work had to be done anew by
themselves--a task that few judges were able, and still fewer willing,
to perform. Thus the decision lay virtually in the hands of the
secretary and the minor officials, and in general neither the secretary
nor the minor officials were fit persons to have such power. There is
no need to detail here the ingenious expedients by which they increased
their meagre salaries, and how they generally contrived to extract money
from both parties.* Suffice it to say that in general the chancelleries
of the courts were dens of pettifogging rascality, and the habitual,
unblushing bribery had a negative as well as a positive effect. If a
person accused of some crime had no money wherewith to grease the palm
of the secretary he might remain in prison for years without being
brought to trial. A well-known Russian