For and against the entire abolition of capital punishment the chief arguments of each side are at present these: Those who wish capital punishment to be retained point to the number of political murders which have occurred during the last year, and especially to the long list of innocent policemen who have been murdered, and maintain that if capital punishment is abolished these crimes will increase. Those who wish it to be abolished say that the existence of capital punishment, so far from exercising a restraining influence on political criminals, excites people to murder and makes martyrs of them. Moreover, they point out that when people expatiate on the terrible list of political assassinations they altogether overlook their cause. They are not in all cases the result of irresponsible hysteria. The defenders of the Government say: “You make martyrs of people who are merely common murderers;” the opponents answer: “The Government shuts its eyes to the lawless and criminal acts of its officials, and the people are obliged to take the law into their own hands.” This is the present state of the question, and I have endeavoured to present both sides of it. Quite apart from the political murders of the last two years, it is interesting to note that, as far as we can tell, the abolition of capital punishment in Russia has not had the effect of increasing crime. In 1890 the proportion of homicides was seven to the million in Russia (7·4), almost exactly the same as the proportion in the British Isles during that year, which was (7·5). _July 12th_ (_continued_). This morning I went to see Nazarenko, who had made an appointment with me. My friend Petruckin was there also. We discussed the question of the Inter-Parliamentary Conference. He said he meant to go to London. “They are so absorbed here in party politics,” he said, “that they forget that these things are larger and more important, because they concern Russia as a great power. The members of the Duma do not want to go with the members of the Council of Empire. But I tell them it is like this. If I see a wounded man on the ground and go to help him, and a man whom I dislike comes to help him also, I don’t stop helping the wounded man because the man I dislike is helping; that would be absurd.” He said he had read some of the Shelley I had given him. Shelley was a real poet. Russian poets wrote about nothing except love; but in Shelley there was a different spirit. “I have read Byron, too, a long time ago; but he is too pessimistic, and is always harping on one theme—himself.” I asked him if he had ever read “Paradise Lost.” “Yes,” he answered, “I read it when I was thirteen; it was one of the first books I ever read. There is glorious fantasy!”