The use of torture in criminal investigations was formally abolished in 1801, but if we may believe the testimony of a public prosecutor, it was occasionally used in Moscow as late as 1850.

The defects and abuses of the old system were so flagrant that they became known even to the Emperor Nicholas I., and caused him momentary indignation, but he never attempted seriously to root them out.  In 1844, for example, he heard of some gross abuses in a tribunal not far from the Winter Palace, and ordered an investigation.  Baron Korff, to whom the investigation was entrusted, brought to light what he called “a yawning abyss of all possible horrors, which have been accumulating for years,” and his Majesty, after reading the report, wrote upon it with his own hand:  “Unheard-of disgrace!  The carelessness of the authority immediately concerned is incredible and unpardonable.  I feel ashamed and sad that such disorder could exist almost under my eyes and remain unknown to me.”  Unfortunately the outburst of Imperial indignation did not last long enough to produce any desirable consequences.  The only result was that one member of the tribunal was dismissed from the service, and the Governor-General of St. Petersburg had to resign, but the latter subsequently received an honorary reward, and the Emperor remarked that he was himself to blame for having kept the Governor-General so long at his post.

When his Majesty’s habitual optimism happened to be troubled by incidents of this sort he probably consoled himself with remembering that he had ordered some preparatory work, by which the administration of justice might be improved, and this work was being diligently carried out in the legislative section of his own chancery by Count Bludof, one of the ablest Russian lawyers of his time.  Unfortunately the existing state of things was not thereby improved, because the preparatory work was not of the kind that was wanted.  On the assumption that any evil which might exist could be removed by improving the laws, Count Bludof devoted his efforts almost entirely to codification.  In reality what was required was to change radically the organisation of the courts and the procedure, and above all to let in on their proceedings the cleansing atmosphere of publicity.  This the Emperor Nicholas could not understand, and if he had understood it he could not have brought himself to adopt the appropriate remedies, because radical reform and control of officials by public opinion were his two pet bugbears.

Very different was his son and successor, Alexander II., in the first years of his reign.  In his accession manifesto a prominent place was given to his desire that justice and mercy should reign in the courts of law.  Referring to these words in a later manifesto, he explained his wishes more fully as “the desire to establish in Russia expeditious, just, merciful, impartial courts of justice for all our subjects; to raise the judicial authority; to