selecting the men for home service and foreign
service. It would seem, at first sight, as if the
worst criminals should be those selected for
transportation; but perhaps the really desperate
character, the foul and irreclaimable ruffian,
should be kept at home, where prisons are strong,
and where the resources of justice are numerous
and irresistible: where it is hard to find
opportunities of plotting, and harder still to carry a
plot out. Transportation is a chance for a man,
and it should be awarded to the less desperate
class of criminals, of whom there is, perhaps,
some sort of hope. Society has little to do with
merely retaliating on these men for their offences
against it. It has to protect itself against them.
We say of such and such a man, "We know
that if his prison bars were removed he would
go out to molest mankind." And so we come
to the conclusion that his prison bars must be
kept hard and fast and strong, and we are not
to be taken in because he assumes an amiable
look behind them, nor are we to take the
obedience of one whose interest it is to obey, for any
indication of reform.

What we have asserted is:

1. That the habitual criminal is hopeless, or
that the chances of his reform are so infinitisimal
as not to be worth taking into account.

2. That short punishments are of little avail,
and rarely useful.

3. That warnings also are of small avail—
punishments, however severe, rarely deterring
the criminal from acts of crime.

4. That he must be secluded from society.

What we want done is:

1. That the habitual criminal should be kept
in perpetual restraint.

2. That in the exceptional case of his reforming,
the rules of his ticket-of-leave should be
rigidly enforced.

3. That those men who have forfeited their
liberty should be regarded in the light of bond-
servants, and that their services should be
applied wherever slave-labour would be useful, at
home or abroad.

4. That these bond-servants should be made
to work so hard, as that their services should be
really useful and remunerative.

THE NEW YEAR IN RUSSIA.

IT is awfully cold; so cold that the very
outcasts in the street are too cold to beg; they
shrink, utterly blasted by the deadly chill of the
air, into holes and corners, and lie shuddering.
First, we had a hard frost some six weeks ago;
then it rained for a single night, and froze again
in the morning. The streets were iced all over,
and looked as they might have done if covered
with ground-glass. Then, it snowed again, a
fine dust-like snow, with a wild wind that tore
into the very hearts of trees, and shattered the
stately masts of many a ship on the frozen sea.
Then, down came a soft rain again, sufficient to
make the snow uneven and spoil its virgin whiteness.
This rain, lasted a lew hours, and the
iron frost came back once more, windless but
terrible. No furs have a chance against this
dreadful cold of the Epiphany.

Yesterday the streets were all deserted. The
beautiful town and its stately buildings seemed
like a city of the dead; or one that had been
smitten by some fearful plague; or one of the
dream cities which the Eastern story-tellers talk
about, in the rambling tales of enchantment
with which they amuse the bazaars of Herat
and Cabool. It is dangerous to walk about the
streets, they are so slippery; and it is hard even
to balance oneself and crawl along with the help
of a stick. The droschkies have ceased to ply,
and the thermometer marks nearly thirty degrees
below zero.

These difficulties, which seemed insurmountable
at noonday on the thirty-first of December,
are all laughed! to scorn before midnight. The
whole town is alive with hubbub towards nine
o'clock in the evening; and for the next three
hours no gayer scene is to be found in the world
than that which is passing in every town of
Russia. The whole population appears to wake
up. The smartest carriages and harness are
brought out, and the air rings with the cheerful
cry of coachmen as they drive rapidly along,
and with the busy tinkling of sledge bells.
Everybody is going everywhere. There is a
masked ball at the Exchange; and hardly a
family removed from poverty but has sent out
invitations to friends and dependents for a
merry-making. Lights gleam from every
window, and wherever a door is open music and
laughter pour through it.

At midnight, the dancing at the masked ball
has reached its height, when it is stopped by
the joyful notes of a trumpet, and, as the clocks
begin to strike twelve, the stewards of the ball
advance, followed by waiters bearing trays of
glasses filled with champagne, and everybody
wishes everybody a happy new year; after
which, the dancing begins again. The same
scene passes in private houses, only at the great
public ball at the Exchange it is gayer and more
striking.

Christmas is kept with little festivity in Russian
cities. Strange to say, it is the only great
religious festival which seems to pass almost
unnoticed among the rigid formalists of the
Greek Church. All the sympathies or the priesthood
and the public seem reserved for Easter.
But there are some curious Christmas
observances which seem to depend upon very old
tradition. The peasantry go to the great
house, with a large glass star, on Christmas
Eve, in remembrance of the star which shone
over Bethlehem, and guided the wise men on
their journey from the East to Jerusalem to
worship the King of Glory, who lay in the
manger there. The peasants sing carols ending
with a chorus wishing "Long life!—long life!"
to the people of the house, and when they have
received money go on their way rejoicing. In
some places there is also a custom which I have
never met with elsewhere: children come in
to the bedrooms before their inmates are up,