code. It is less sentimental, however, based much more on recognized principles and less on probable theory. It was approved and signed by the Viceroy of Finland, Count Heyden, and the Emperor, as Grand Duke, ordered it to be published and promulgated, and to come into force on the 1st January next year. Thereupon the ultra-patriotic press of St. Petersburg and Moscow, which, hundreds of times before, had reproached the Finns with the barbarity of their laws, now coolly declared that they saw no reason why Finland should not wait until Russia had completed her code-an event which may possibly take place twenty or thirty years hence. They also picked out a few paragraphs of the laws touching upon high treason, criticised and grossly misinterpreted them, and condemned them as subversive of all law and order. Their attacks were so virulent and persevering that the Emperor's advisers, to avoid being accused of a lack of combative patriotism, obtained a ukase, which was published a few days ago, to the effect that the new Finnish penal code should not come into operation until it had been thoroughly examined and amended by a mixed commission of Russian and Finnish jurists. But far more precious than the most humane penal code ever yet framed is that sincere respect for justice and fair play which is the most solid ground of all social institutions; and in this the Finns are in nowise behind the Teutonic nations. The Russians are blessed or cursed with a whole library of hopelessly contradictory criminal and civil laws, not one of which has ever yet been consistently enforced. In France laws are tempered by the code of "honor," and by juries who conscientiously acquit a notorious murderer, an example which certain organs of New Journalism would like to see imitated by English juries. In Finland law is law. It may be unjust, but until repealed it has to be observed, and is observed accordingly. "Can I have a shot at an elk "I asked a Finnish peasant who lived on the fringe of a forest well stocked with this noble game. "No, sir, it's against the law." "What is the penalty?" I asked. "Two hundred Finnish marks," he answered. "All right; will you come along with me if I agree to pay the fine ?" "No, I won't; it's against the law, and I am not going to break it." NEW SERIES.-VOL. LIII., No. 3. Is cleanliness a sign of moral progress? If so, Finnish civilization must in truth be of a very refined kind. Russians can scarcely be accused of too pronounced a partiality for Finland, and yet this is what a Russian journalist, M. Janshieff, says about the cleanliness of the Finns : "From morning till night they are continually washing and scrubbing. I am told that in the country districts there is an official who at a stated hour every day goes about from farmstead to farmstead beating a drum and seeing that the pigs are washed. This statement I had no opportunity of verifying, but what I did see and can bear witness to is that every day, without exception, the floors, stairs, and window-sills were washed, and the tea and dinner service washed with soap. And as for the quantity of water used by a Finn to wash his sinful body, it surpasses the bounds of the credible."'* advancement is the greater or less purity Another fair test of a people's moral and simplicity of their religious conceptions. Bossuet once maliciously said of Malebranche, who suffered from a physical defect that was painfully visible, that he was called to the priesthood alike by nature and by grace. malice, be asserted of the Finns that they It may, without any were predestined to become members of and natural surroundings. Their concepthe Lutheran Church by their character tion of life is that of most northern peoples, who regard it as an unceasing struggle. They are perpetually at war with the elements, and are as frequently vanquished as victors. Their powers of endurance are taxed to the utmost, their combative energy continually called into play, their self-reliance developed to its furthest limits. "He who endures, wins everything," is a popular Finnish proverb. And the end of all this silent suffering and self-sacrifice is but the preservation of life and strength to go on toiling, creating, enduring. This is the soil that produced a truly lofty conception of duty, the idea of life as a perpetual warfare, the consciousThe climate of Finland is destructive of all ness of the obligation of living for others. species of the human butterfly and parasite. "Better die than beg". "The lazy man dies of cold"- -are some of the proverbial sayings that embody this truth. The Finns, like the Old English, take even their pleasures sadly. Their very songs 20 * Cf. Russian Journal (of Moscow), 23rd October, 1888. tell their unwritten story as plainly as the rustling leaves of the forest proclaimed that of King Midas. In vain one listens for the light, gay ephemeral melodies of the sunny south floating on the balmy breeze,-fit accompaniment to the humming of bees, the warbling of birds, and the lulling rustle of silken leaves. The national musical instrument-the kántela-is too heavy to accompany such gay trifles. The origin of this instrument is described in an an- "Hollow falsehood they speak who claim Fast in his hands the jawbones holding, 'Sorrow carved it, and carking care Vibrate never with notes of gladness, pomp and show. Languid music, the blaze of wax tapers, and the smoke of fragrant incense had no hold on the Finn, appealed to no sense within him. His religion is therefore severe, solemn, gloomy and mysterious like the nature around him; and is admirably symbolized in the vast, cold, sombre pile reared aloft in the Middle Ages when Finland was yet Catholic, and which still stands as the Cathedral Church of Abo. But if not poetical the religion of the Finns is at least natural. It admirably harmonizes with their character and instincts, and is one of the main influences that mould their lives. And yet there is no trace of fanaticism in their composition. The Finns tolerate Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Presbyterianism and Buddh ism, if the members of these churches care to come and settle in the country. Thus the Salvation Army has been welcomed with open arms, and a Hallelujah lass offers you a copy of the War Cry openly on the streets of Helsingfors or Wyborg, a couple of hours' journey from St. Petersburg, where she would be thrust into prison and For sorrow hath made it and chorded sad- ignominiously expelled from the country. ness Sits in its tuneful shape.t" Face to face with sad, silent Nature, man grows silent and gloomy in turn and loses, if he ever possessed, the sense that would enable him to enjoy gay trifles, According to another tradition the hero Wäinämöinen made the kántela out of the heart of a solitary birch that was deploring its sad lot; the pegs of gold and silver fell from the bill of a cuckoo; for chords he took the tresses of a beautiful maiden who was waiting for her lover. When he sounded the chords the music was so melodious that all the living creatures of the earth, air, and water, and the very spirits of those elements came to listen; and it drew tears from every one of them, and first of all from Wäinämöinen himself. †The Finns are one of the few non-Aryan races whose language is soft and melodious, whose idioms are choice and picturesque, whose poetry is as true to nature as that of Homer or Firdoosi. Under conditions seem ingly very adverse to the production of epic poetry, the Finns have given the world a collection of remarkable epic songs which will stand the test of time as successfully as they have passed through the more trying ordeal of translation. Many of the verges of these songs are medallions marvellously fashioned by that intensity and sincerity of feeling which is essential to the highest kinds of poetry. They frequently condense the history of an epoch into a single line. Toleration is, however, not enough for the holy Orthodox Church, which, like Pope Leo XII., holds that toleration is mere cruelty to those in whose favor it is exer cised. "What!'' exclaims the Chauvin ist press of St. Petersburg and Moscow, the holy religion of which his sacred Majesty is at once a member and the head is only tolerated in beggarly Finland ! Here surely there must be something radically wrong!" As a matter of fact, the Orthodox confession is much better treated in Finland than any other, and is in many respects better cared for than in Russia itself. In the eastern provinces of the Grand Duchy, on the borders of Russia, there are a couple of thousand Finns who have for several generations professed the doctrines of the Orthodox Church. These people are compelled by force to remain in that Church, and the Finnish Government has been obliged to threaten them with the severest penalties of the law if they dared to become Lutheraus. ances a statute was then enacted forbidding both Lutherans and Greek Catholics to change their respective churches, but the Russian patriots, many of whom, like the late Count D. Tolstoi, are Atheists, are now agitating for a law forbidding only To save appear Greek Catholics to interpret Christianity otherwise than the Tsar, and indirectly encouraging the members of all other churches to embrace Orthodoxy. Then again, the Russian Government only pays a yearly salary to a fraction of the entire number of Orthodox priests in the Empire; while the Government of Protestant Finland is compelled to support the Orthodox clergy in all Finnish towns-" because," explains the official document, "the number of Orthodox parishioners is too small to allow them to pay a clergyman of their own confession." And this, though the Lutheran clergy are left to shift for themselves. The Finnish Government is also compelled to provide at its own expense Orthodox religious instruction for the Greek Catholic boys and girls who frequent Finnish schools, even though there be but one such boy or girl in the parish or district, and the nearest Orthodox pope lives 300 miles away. But all this is too little, and the saints of the Orthodox Church refuse to be comforted. Sure of unending bliss in Paradise above, they are curiously impatient for a foretaste of it in Finland here below. There is no room for doubt that in this case, as in most others, the Orthodox Church is merely a stalking horse from behind which deadly aim is being taken against Finnish liberties. The Roman maxim, Divide et impera, has also been frequently applied of late, but with very pitiful results. At first an attempt was made to foment dissensions between the two racial elements of the State-Swedes and Finns, but they both joined hands and declared themselves Finns and fellow citizens competent to govern their country without any assistance from without. The next move which revealed the extraordinary ignorance prevailing in Russia on all matters connected with Finland, was an attempt to stir up class against class: the Russian press shedding crocodile tears over the lamentable economical and. political position of the downtrodden Finnish peasant, and broadly hinting that under Russian rule he would live in a land overflowing with milk and honey. These tactics had proved singularly successful in the Baltic Provinces a few years ago, when the untutored Letts enthusiastically hailed the Russians as their benefactors, and were impatient for the reforms which would, it was pronised, include an equitable redis. tribution of land. The "reforms" have come to pass since then, and the Letts are painfully picking up ideas on Russian good faith, and feeling like the ill-advised horse who invited man to espouse his quarrel. But the Finnish peasant is shrewd and practical, and he is very well aware that he has an important share in the government of his country. Moreover, unlike the Russian, he never was a serf, and has consequently no particular quarrel with the rod that was never lifted up against him * When, therefore, a few weeks ago the semi-official Novoye Vremya expressed the hope and belief that after all the Finnish peasantry would be glad to see Finland absorbed in Russia, the whole country resolved to record its solemn protest against any such calumny, and would have done so had the Government not interfered to prevent it. Russia's grievances against Finland are likewise extremely trivial when not highly ridiculous. Last year, for instance, when negotiating the conversion of a foreign loan, the Finnish Government undertook to pay the stipulated rate of interest regularly, even in time of war, and irrespective of the nationality to which the bondholders belonged. This promise, which may possibly be judged ill-advised, but was certainly honest, raised a perfect storm of abuse in Russia, some organs of the press demanding the immediate incorporation of Finland in the Empire, and others angrily maintaining that it was a crime little less heinous than high treason to allow Finnish finances to be in a more flourishing condition than those of the Orthodox subjects of the Tsar. Another time the slumbering indignation of the patriotic Slav is aroused by the thought that the Finn still prints the date on his railway The following paragraph taken from the Novoye Vremya, is sufficiently characteristic of the terms of equality existing between all classes of the Finnish population-" The Finns are a coarse, stubborn people, who cannot brook superiors. In the army, for instance, the lopsided recruit marches off to his regiment in his huge boots reaching up to his knees, with his scarf wound in endless coils round his neck; and when he gets there deems it his bounden duty to stretch out his long muscular paw to the officer who receives him, and is seriously offended if the latter, happening to have been trained up in the Russian military traditions, refuses to shake the proffered hand."-Novoye Vremya, 2ud March, 1890. tickets according to the new style, and stubbornly refuses to give up the Gregorian Calendar and loiter behind the age as Russia does. I have stated that Russian ignorance of Finnish affairs is incredible. The following is a case in point. The Novoye Vremya, the semi-official organ of the Russian Government, which is believed to influence even imperial majesty itself at times, lately published a most indignant article on the crying injustice perpetrated for the last eighty-nine years by Finnish laws which still impose enormously high duties on Russian vessels touching at Finnish ports, while Russia makes no distinction whatever between Russian and Finnish vessels. This assertion, which might easily have been verified, was indignantly commented upon by the entire Russian press; and yet it was false-so false, indeed, that it had not even the proverbial grain of truth to leaven it. What is still more curious, however, is the circumstance that some months previously a Russian specialist" conscientiously" prepared and read a learned paper before the powerful Society for the Promotion of Russian Navigation, on the same theme, in which he deliberately stated that Russian vessels touching at Finnish ports were compelled to pay dues several hundred per cent. higher than Finnish vessels. And yet it is notorious-in Finland at least-that since the 2nd of May, 1816, all Russian vessels that enter Finnish ports enjoy exactly the same rights and privileges as Finnish vessels. And yet the Novoye Vremya has never retracted its misleading statement. 66 It must be admitted that the Finns on their side show an almost equal degree of ignorance, if not precisely of Russian affairs, at least of the Russian character. They feel that they have right on their side, and are confident that right triumphs in Russia as in Finland. Hence the calmness, the objectivity, with which they discuss the question of their national existence, the striking absence of that rancor and vindictiveness which, in conversation about Russia, is common to the Pole, the Baltic, German, and even the Orthodox Little Russian. They never hint at shouldering the musket and dying in the last ditch. The Tsar has no more loyal subjects than the Finns, and he has more than * Cf. Novosti, 26th February, 1890. once acknowledged this. True, they do not pretend to regard him as an individual of a superhuman race, to please whom they are prepared to change their religion, perjure their souls, and sell their own fathers. I have frequently conversed with Finnish peasants, merchants, seamen, representatives, journalists, and nobles, and from none of them have I ever heard a disloyal word. 'We have reason to be deeply grateful to Russia," one of them remarked, " and we are grateful. We might be as happy under her wing in the future as we have been in the recent past. All we need is the continuation of peace and liberty, which have inflicted no injury on Russia and have conferred inestimable benefits upon us. 66 And thus Finland, in the person of its prominent citizens, men like Senator Mechelin, Professor Donner, Dr. Lille, are putting forth all their erudition and their logic, and triumphing over the PanRussian party all along the line, little dreaming that they are but rehearsing the part of the lamb in the fable, who likewise triumphed over the wolf-in argument. The truth is that Finland has been fed like one of the victims of the Mexican god Tezcutlipoca, and the time is drawing near for the consummation of the sacrifice. All true friends of Russia will regret that it is taking place by order of the Emperor, who eight years before, took God to witness that he would treat the Finns as a free nation, and govern them in conformity with their constitution, and whose sweet insinuating voice is still audible, inviting the Bulgarians to imitate the Finns, and trust themselves and their country to the disinterested love of Russia and the honor bright of her Tsar. un. In this country there are hundreds of politicians-mostly Liberals-whose reasoning optimism may still prompt them to ask what real harm would accrue to Finland if it were transformed into a Russian province. This is not the place to answer that question, but the reply has frequently been given by liberal-minded Russians, who unanimously condemn the present policy of their Government in Finland. Those who are even superficially acquainted with the present economical state of Russia will readily understand all that is implied in the words, "incorporated in the Empire." For those who are not, the following brief summing up, taken from a recent number of one of the best-informed and most patriotic organs of St. Petersburg, may possibly prove helpful: "The most respected students of Russian life bear witness to the fact that so far from the people becoming, as in West European countries, better fed, better housed, better instructed, and more civilized year by year, it is painfully evident that the unmistakable process of decomposition has set in among the Russian peasantry, the drying up of the material and moral sap, the process of demoralization. Neither in Europe nor in any civilized country of the whole world is there a people to be found poorer than the Russian people, more grossly ignorant than the Russian people, who dwell in more primitive dwellings than the Russian people, or who till the ground with more primitive implements. Even such pagan countries as China and Japan, with their well-informed inhabitants and high standard of agriculture, have far outstripped our Russian people. Our peasant, with his plough and wooden harrow, that seem to have been handed down from the Age of Bronze, and with his benighted ignorance and carelessness, loses three-fourths of the possible harvest. Among the peasants epidemic diseases are continually raging to such an extent that competent medical authorities declare that they carry off as many lives yearly as if cholera were perpetually in our midst. The terrific mortality among children is accounted for by the custom of giving infants sour black bread wrapped up in a rag to suck-a barbarity not practised even by the non-Russian tribes on the Volga. The astounding lack of elementary civilization among the people manifests itself in the frightful spread of drunkenness and syphilis. It is notorious that these two scourges were the main causes of the degeneration of Australian and other savages, In Russia among our own people, painful though it be to make the admission, ... something extremely suggestive of this process is now taking place. We will say nothing of drunkenness, in which, to use an expression of Dostoïeffsky's, our people is rotting away.' Things much more horrible still may be in store for our people from syphilis. Spread throughout the length and breadth of Russia, it has in many places infected the whole population. Dr. Maslovsky, for instance, writes from the Government of Tamboff :-' In some places every man, woman, and child, or nearly every one, is infected, and it is impossible to prevent this spread of syphilis by any conceivable measures, How can you cure a disease so catching when all the members of the peasant family eat out of one platter, sleep in one bed, and when the same coat and the same felt boots pass from one member of the family to another? The zemsky doctors of the Government of Kursk, at the Fourth Medical Congress, resolved that -recognizing the fruitlessness of the efforts made to stay the spread of syphilis, the Govermental zemstvo be requested to release all zemsky doctors from the obligation of making any." . . From the effects of drunkenness, insufficient nourish. ment, heavy work out of all proportion to their strength, and disease, even the physical type of the Russian peasant is obviously degenerating. More than ten years ago Professor Janson, in his Comparative Statistics, called attention to the lamentable fact that the Great Russian race was degenerating, even if compared with the non-Russian tribes of the Empire. And thus the erstwhile powerful, gifted branch of Slavonic colonizers, the founders of a mighty empire, are degenerating into a weak effete race of beings, devoid even of the capacity for progress."'* And this is the race with which the Tsar declares it desirable that Finland should be joined in closer union.-Fortnightly Review. KOCH'S TREATMENT OF TUBERCULOSIS. BY SIR MORELL MACKENZIE. Now that the smoke of the tremendous salvo of journalistic artillery with which the announcement of Professor Koch's discovery was received is clearing away, it is becoming possible, in the words of Matthew Arnold, to "see things as they really are," and to form some kind of forecast as to the issue of this latest phase in the war of medical science against disease. Notwithstanding the carefully guarded terms in which Dr. Koch himself spoke of the results of his investigations, it was inevitable that exaggerated hopes should have been excited in the minds of persons untrained in the judicial weighing of scientific evi dence, and only too willing, for their own sake or that of others dear to them, to be convinced that an effectual remedy had at last been found for consumption. And, indeed, the enthusiasm of the medical profession itself, especially in Germany, seemed to justify this belief. Never, so far as I know, has anything like it been seen in the history of medicine; in this, as in other fields of human activity, discoverers and inventors have generally been the victims of ridicule and neglect, when they have not been taken out and stoned. * Nedelya (The Week), 9th November, 1890. |