(St.), the capital of Russia, is a city, of which a pretty full historical detail has been given in the Encyclopaedia. It is introduced here merely on account of its police, which, according to the anonymous author of the life of Catherine II., has a very simple and competent organization, and deserves to be adopted in other great capitals. Excepting the governor, whose office naturally extends to all objects of public welfare, the head police-master is the proper chief of the whole system of police. His office takes in the great compass of this department, but confined to the general objects of public security and order. He is not here, as in some large towns, the formidable co-partner of family secrets, and the invisible witness of the actions of the private man. Under the head police-master is the police-office, where sit a police-master, two preidents, the one for criminal, the other for civil cases, and two constables, chosen from the burglar clubs. To this is committed the care to maintain decorum, good order, and morals; also it is its business to see to the observance of the laws, that the orders issued by government, and the decisions of the courts of justice, are put in force. The attainment of these purposes is effected by the following mechanism:

The residence is divided into ten departments. Each of these has a president, appointed to watch over the laws, the security, and the order of his district. The duties and rights of this office are not less extensive than important. A president must have exact knowledge of the inhabitants of his department, over which a sort of parental authority is committed to him; he is the confessor of his department; his house must not be bolted or barred by night or day, but must be a place of refuge, continually open to all that are in danger or distress; he himself may not quit the town for the space of two hours, without committing the discharge of his office to some other person. The police-commando (constables), and the watchmen of his department, are under under his orders; and he is attended on all affairs of his office by two sergeants. Complaints against unjust behaviour in the president may be brought to the police office.

Each department is again divided into three, four, or five subdivisions, called quarters, of which, in the whole residence, are 42. Each of these has a quarter-inspector, in subordination to whom is a quarter-lieutenant. The duty of these police-officers is in harmony with that of the president, only that their activity is confined to a smaller circle. They settle low affairs and slight alterations on the spot, and keep a watchful eye on all that passes.

The number of the nightly watch in the city amounts to 500. They have their stations assigned them in watch-houses at the corners of streets; and, besides their proper destination, are to assist in the taking up of offenders, and in any service, by day or night, as their commanders shall require. Besides these, for the execution of the police orders, and to act as patrols, there is also a commando of 120 men, who, in cases of emergency, are supported by a company of kozaks, or a regiment of hussars.

This machine, consisting of so many subordinate parts, preserves in its orderly course that security and peace which excite the admiration of all foreigners. The activity of every individual member is unobserved in the operation of the whole; and by such a distribution alone is the attainment of so complicated an aim practicable.—All the quarter-inspectors of a department repair every morning, at seven o'clock, to their inspector's house, to lay before him the report of all that has happened in their quarters during the last 24 hours; and at eight o'clock, all the inspectors bring together these several reports into the police-office, whereupon they first and immediately take into examination the cases of persons taken into custody during the night. On urgent occasions, the police-office assembles at all hours.

This organization, and the extraordinary vigilance of the police, which is found competent to the business of a numerous and restless people, render all secret inquiries unnecessary. The police has knowledge of all persons in the residence; travellers who come and go are subject to certain formalities, which render it extremely difficult to conceal their place of abode, or their departure from the city. To this end, every householder and innkeeper is obliged to declare to the police, who lodges with him, or what strangers have put up at his house. If a stranger or lodger stays out all night, the landlord must inform the police of it at latest on the third day of his absence from his house. The cautionary rules, in regard to travellers quitting the town, are still more strict. These must publish in the newspapers their name, their quality, and their place of abode, three several times, and produce the newspapers containing the advertisement, as a credential in the government from which they then receive their passport; without which, it is next to impossible to get out of the empire. This regulation not only secures the creditor of the person about to depart, but also enables the police to keep a closer inspection over all suspected inhabitants.

If individuals may be suspected by the government, because their means of support, the company they keep, and their whole course of action, are closely wrapped up in mystery; so likewise may whole societies be less indifferent to it, if they carefully conceal the object of their connection, or their very existence, from the eye of the public. The police watches here, with laudable attention, over secret societies of all kinds; and frequently as the fanatical spirit of religious or political sectaries, or the enthusiasm of pretended mystagogues, have attempted to nestle here, they have never been able to proceed, or only for a very short time. Animal magnetism, Martinism, Rosicrucianism, and by whatever other name the conceits of discontented imaginations may be called, have always been attended with the same bad success on this stage.

From this sketch it will be readily imagined, that the number of impostors and disturbers of the public peace can be but small. Quarrels and affrays in the street or in the cabals but seldom happen. The person attacked calls the nearest watchman; and in a moment both the aggressor and the aggrieved are taken into custody, and led to the next sjeza (police-watch-house), where the cause of their quarrel is inquired into, and the aggressor is punished. For matters of some descriptions, there is a peculiar tribunal, under the denomination of the oral court, which, on account of its singularity, deserves to be briefly noticed.

In each quarter of the town are one or more judges of the oral court, who are chosen from the class of burghers, and with whom are associated a few jurats. This court sits daily in the forenoon, and proceeds orally in all the differences that come before it. It, however, keeps a day-book, in which are entered all the causes and decisions of the court, and which must be every week laid before the magistrate. When a charge is brought, the court declares it orally to the president of the quarter; whereupon the accused must not delay his appearance before the police longer than one day after he has received the summons. Every cause must be determined in one day, or, if the examinations require more time in collecting, in three days. The oral court communicates the decision to the president of the quarter by means of his day-book, in order to its ratification. If either party is not satisfied with the sentence, he may appeal to the court as appointed in the regulations.

This is a very favourable account of the police of St Peterburgh; but it is differently represented in Beaujon's Travels of two Frenchmen through Russia, in 1790—1792. According to him, the police of the capital of that empire is far from being on the most respectable footing. There happen, indeed, but few accidents in the night; yet sometimes murders are committed, and especially thefts; for which, according to our author, it is exceedingly rare to obtain justice. When a person has been assassinated in some place of bad repute, the police-officer is engaged to secrecy by means of a few rubles; so that the affair is soon hushed up, unless the deceased belonged to some powerful family, whose interest makes it necessary that inquiries should be instituted. When two persons quarrel, either in the street or in a public-house, he who pays the inquirer is always in the right; the inferior police-officers are never proof against money; and the poor individual, whether he be in the right or wrong, is almost sure of a beating.