Roumania Past and Present by James Samuelson (lightweight ebook reader .TXT) 📖

as though they were
engaged in battle. The women wandered about like shadows. At last
the men with joyful gestures rushed towards them as though they had
found them after great danger, led them back into the circle, and
danced with joy and animation. Here we see how mighty is tradition.
This dance is a complete poem! Who knows of what long-forgotten
incursion of the barbarians it is a reminiscence?'[69]

[Illustration: THE 'HORA,' NATIONAL DANCE OF ROUMANIA.]

From those few illustrations it will be seen how the language and customs of Roumania are interwoven with her past history. We have but touched the fringe of the subject; but that it is a fertile source of interesting study and research we are convinced, and therefore recommend those who are able to follow it up to give it their attention.[70]

[Footnote 67: It may be interesting to philologists to consider the derivations of the English names of these common things, and compare them with the Roumanian; the preponderance of the Anglo-Saxon element in the one and the Latin in the other is very apparent.]

[Footnote 68: Das Magyarische im Romänischen , Roesler, Appendix, p. 346. We have been compelled to translate Roesler's German into English for the significations, and the sense may thus have been changed or lost; he is therefore not responsible for such errors. The words marked with an asterisk are the most striking for our purpose, and they are in constant use in Roumania.]

[Footnote 69: A. de Gerando, Siebenbürgen und seine Bewohner , p. 213. Lorck, Leipsig, 1845.]

[Footnote 70: Most of the works on Roumania deal with the question. Ozanne (cap. xi.) has a few remarks on the subject; Wilkinson (appendix iv. p. 201) gives along list of words derived from Latin, Italian, modern Greek, and Turkish roots, but the Roumanian words are since changed; Vaillant, Obedenare, Neigebaur, Henke, Pic, Roesler, all treat the subject more or less fully. The chief authorities in Roumanian are Hasdeu, Ubicini, and Lauriani.]


CHAPTER VIII.

JUDICIAL AND PENAL.

The jurisprudence of the Constitution--Roumanian courts--The Code
Napoléon--Complaints of patronage--The penal system--Capital
punishment abolished--History and effect of the
abolition--Statistics--The prison system--Abuses--Enumeration of
prisons--Employment of convicts--Ornamental art amongst
them--Objects made by them--Absence of educational
measures--Criminal statistics (and note)--Visit to the
'intermediate' prison of Vakareschti--An old monastery--Description
of the prison--Scene in the court-yard--Untried prisoners in
fetters--Promiscuous intercourse of prisoners--Mischievous
effects--Views of a 'juge d'instruction' concerning the
system--Various classes of prisoners--Lenient treatment of
them--Partial employment--Safeguards against mutiny--Visit to the
penal salt mine of Doftana (or Telega)--Former treatment of
prisoners--A lingering death--Present treatment--Conditions of
penal servitude--Compared with work of our
colliers--Abuses--Descent into the mine--Its condition--Unearthly
sounds and sights--Enormous salt cave--Floor of the cave--Convicts
at work in chains--Mode of excavating and raising salt--Lighting
the mine for visitors--Return to the surface--Visit to the
penitentiary--Its discreditable condition--Alleged frauds upon
convicts--General mild treatment of criminals in
Roumania--Utilisation of convict labour--Comparison of cost and
results of systems in Roumania and England--Favourable to Roumania.


I.

As in the case of education, so, too, in regard to its judicial and penal system, the Constitution of Roumania contains many admirable provisions (articles 13, 18, 104, 105, &c.) for the maintenance of right and the suppression of wrong-doing. Equal rights, ordinary tribunals, speedy trial by jury, abolition of death punishment, these are the excellent principles upon which the judicial system is based; but neither there, nor for that matter in any country, are they completely put into practice. There is one Court of Cassation with sections, and a Court of Accounts at Bucarest, Courts of Appeal at Bucarest, Jassy, Craiova, and Focsany, and minor tribunals in the chief town of each district. The French Code of Jurisprudence is adopted, with modifications which would not interest our readers; but the penal system is somewhat unique, and is well worthy of a closer study and consideration. Of the miserable accommodation for the exercise of judicial authority in Bucarest we have already spoken in describing the capital. Lawsuits are very tedious; whether more so than in England we are unable to say. Great complaint exists of patronage in the appointment of judges, most of whom are comparatively young men and political partisans. This it is proposed to remedy by what would practically be popular election; whether the cure would be any better than the disease is questionable. The penal system, as we found it carried out in Roumania, is mild, utilitarian, and slovenly; and if all that was told us be true, we fear we must add that it is by no means free from corruption.

The chief points of interest to Englishmen are the absence of capital punishment and the substitution of forced labour for life, or for a long term of years, and the utilisation of penal labour in the salt mines and elsewhere. Capital punishment ceased de facto in 1852; for although it was not legally abolished, neither the then ruler, Prince Stirbey, nor his successor, Prince Couza, who governed the joint Principalities, would sign a death-warrant. It was legally abrogated in 1865, and the Constitution of 1866 declares that it cannot be re-established, excepting for military offences. No increase, but rather a diminution, of capital crimes has taken place since the change was effected; for although the population has doubled in the towns, where homicidal crime is most frequent, the number of offences has not materially increased. The following figures[71] prove this statement:--

Total Committals and Convictions for Homicide.

+------+------------+-------------+------+------------+-------------+ | Year | Committals | Convictions | Year | Committals | Convictions | +------+------------+-------------+------+------------+-------------+ | 1869 | 248 | 185 | 1874 | 258 | 167 | | 1870 | 249 | 154 | 1875 | 236 | 169 | | 1871 | 267 | 140 | 1876 | 386 | 250 | | 1872 | 327 | 204 | 1877 | 307 | 187 | | 1873 | 455 | 258 | | | | +------+------------+-------------+------+------------+-------------+

The punishment for murder with malice aforethought is now penal servitude for life, other phases of homicide five to twenty years, in both cases mine labour. In cases of infanticide, if the offspring is illegitimate it ranks as manslaughter. The following is a condensed summary, with brief comments of our own in parenthesis, of a report on the prison system which was kindly furnished to us by the Roumanian Inspector of Prisons, a zealous, well-meaning, and most courteous official, as are all Roumanian officials.

[Footnote 71: Reports on Laws of Foreign Countries, presented to the House of Commons, 1881.]


II.

The penitentiaries are divided into two classes, 'preventive' and 'central.' In the central prisons three kinds of punishment exist, forced labour, confinement called 'reclusion,' and correction. The men condemned to forced labour work in the mines (in what manner we shall see presently) during the daytime, and at night they sleep above ground in the prison. On Sundays and fête-days they do no work. The product of the labour of the convicts belongs of right to the State, but in order to encourage the prisoners three-tenths is given to them. (We may at once say that this is not faithfully carried into practice, as we know from personal enquiry that many of them are compelled to expend their earning to secure the common necessaries of life.) Aged and feeble persons are transferred to the prison of Cozia, where they weave, &c. The prisoners condemned to 'reclusion' work in tanneries and ropewalks, as for example in the prison of Margineni, and they are entitled to four-tenths of the products of their labour. In the correctional prisons the convicts cultivate the soil, make bricks, &c., and are entitled to half their wages. In all the prisons the convicts are permitted to employ their leisure time in making articles of use or ornament from materials furnished to them by the authorities, which are sold to visitors, and the State gives them a proportion of the fruits of their industry. (These articles we found to be beautifully made. They consist of egg-cups, paper-knives, forks, spoons, &c., carved in wood and resembling similar objects made in Switzerland and the Black Forest. One prisoner had made a tobacco-box of dough, painted and decorated it with artificial flowers of the same material, so that it was not distinguishable from porcelain; another had forged an axe-blade of steel, etched the surface and fixed it upon a polished ebony rod with a terminal spike, forming a miniature ice-axe, and so forth.)

Religious service is provided for the convicts, but so far as we could learn no educational means whatever, although, according to various reports which were handed to us, by far the larger proportion of the prisoners are Roumanians who can neither read nor write.[72]

The total number of persons, men and women, confined in the sixteen State prisons in Roumania in 1880, including untried offenders , was 5,252, or about one per thousand of the whole population. Of these 850 were undergoing forced labour in the mines, and 2,491 were imprisoned for less serious offences. Only 265 were minors, and about 100 or 150 women. A strange contrast to our criminal statistics. Besides the inmates of State prisons there were 1,665 persons confined in the district prisons on January 1, 1881, who had been convicted of minor offences.

[Footnote 72: In 1874 the Assize Courts had judged in all 1,493 persons (1,441 men and 52 women). Of these there were:

|Peasants 961|Roumanians 1,394|Above twenty years of age 1,303| |Artisans 186|All other nations 99|Above sixteen and under twenty 153| |Traders 54| |Under sixteen 11| |Officials 60|