Not the least valuable of the gifts of the " tsar emancipator," Alexander II., to Russia was the judicial System system established by the statute (Sudebni Ustav) of the 10th of November 1864.
Time-honoured custom had hitherto reckoned primogeniture in the male line as the best 'title to the Russian crown; in the ustav of 1722 Peter denounced primogeniture in general as a stupid, dangerous, and even unscriptural practice of dubious origin.