ing as jurors, are very
severe with regard to crimes against property. In this they are
instigated by the simple instinct of self-defence. They are, in fact,
continually at the mercy of thieves and malefactors. They live in wooden
houses easily set on fire; their stables might be broken into by a
child; at night the village is guarded merely by an old man, who cannot
be in more than one place at a time, and in the one place he is apt to
go to sleep; a police officer is rarely seen, except when a crime has
actually been committed. A few clever horse-stealers may ruin many
families, and a fire-raiser, in his desire to avenge himself on an
enemy, may reduce a whole village to destitution. These and similar
considerations tend to make the peasants very severe against theft,
robbery, and arson; and a Public Prosecutor who desires to obtain a
conviction against a man charged with one of these crimes endeavours to
have a jury in which the peasant class is largely represented.

With regard to fraud in its various forms, the peasants are much more
lenient, probably because the line of demarcation between honest and
dishonest dealing in commercial affairs is not very clearly drawn in
their minds. Many, for instance, are convinced that trade cannot be
successfully carried on without a little clever cheating; and hence
cheating is regarded as a venial offence. If the money fraudulently
acquired be restored to the owner, the crime is supposed to be
completely condoned. Thus when a Volost Elder appropriates the public
money, and succeeds in repaying it before the case comes on for trial,
he is invariably acquitted--and sometimes even re-elected!

An equal leniency is generally shown by peasants towards crimes against
the person, such as assaults, cruelty, and the like. This fact is easily
explained. Refined sensitiveness and a keen sympathy with physical
suffering are the result of a certain amount of material well-being,
together with a certain degree of intellectual and moral culture, and
neither of these is yet possessed by the Russian peasantry. Any one who
has had opportunities of frequently observing the peasants must have
been often astonished by their indifference to suffering, both in their
own persons and in the person of others. In a drunken brawl heads may be
broken and wounds inflicted without any interference on the part of the
spectators. If no fatal consequences ensue, the peasant does not think
it necessary that off