EXTENSION OF NIHILISM

  Extension of Nihilism.-With such a constant hidden enemy in their very midst, the Government and people of Russia were in a state of chronic alarm. Count Tolstoi, the Minister of the Interior, whilst diligently searching for Nihilists, was also their especial victim. He daily received threatening letters; he scarcely dared stir out of doors, and whenever he did so, the extra precautions that had to be taken involved an outlay of five hundred roubles. And whilst despotism was more violent and resolute than ever, the trials constantly going on showed that Nihilism had extended its influence to the army, and that the military Nihilists did not belong to the lower ranks. Whilst the emperor shut up Nihilists in one fortress, he was a prisoner in another. The official press of Russia about this time (end of 1884) was very sore on the subject of the comments of the English press on Russian affairs, accusing it of basing its opinions about Russia upon the prejudiced writings of expatriated Nihilists, and further charging the English Government with allowing Nihilists to use the very City of London as a place whence to send not only criminal proclamations, but explosive substances, such as dynamite, to Russia. "Afamily," it was said, "making inquiries about their son, accidentally came across an entire office of Russian Nihilists within the boundaries of the City proper." Of course had the English Government been cognisant of these proceedings, it would readily have put an end to them.

  Decline of Nihilism.-ButNihilism apparently began to decline. A Nihilist manifesto, published in August 1885, lamented: Truth compels us to own that the fierce struggle with the Russian Government, and the spirit of national discontent, which gave strength to our party, which was, in fact, its raison d'etre,has ended in the triumph of absolutism." In the following December a trial took place at Warsaw, at which six persons belonging to the revolutionary association called the Proletariate, including a justice of the police and a captain of Engineers, were sentenced to be hanged; eighteen were condemned to sixteen years' hard labour in the mines, two to ten years and eight months' penal servitude, and two others to transportation to Siberia for life. Early in January 1886 the police discovered a Nihilist rendezvous opposite the Annitchkine Palace, at St. Petersburg. A number of explosive bombs and a printing-press were seized, and several arrests were made. In April it was reported that a Nihilist conspiracy, directed against the life of the emperor, had been discovered at a place near Novo Tcherkask, the capital of the Don Cossacks, to which the emperor was expected to make a visit. Early in December some five hundred students attempted to celebrate the anniversary of a certain Bogolinboff, a once popular poet; but the police interfered, and a number of arrests were made, including many lady students, eighteen of whom were sent off from St. Petersburg by an administrative' order, without the least notion whither they were to be taken, or what was to become of them. Such are the scanty notices we have of Nihilism in 1886.

  Nihilistic Proceedingsin 1887.-In 1887 the Nihilists displayed greater activity. In February another conspiracy was discovered, but the details were not allowed to transpire. All that became known was that a young prince, a cadet in one of the military schools, attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself, the reason alleged being his complicity in some plot which he thought had been discovered. An inquiry into the matter in one or two of the military and naval schools resulted in the arrest of a large number of young men, as well as of two or three naval officers. On Sunday, the 13th March, the anniversary of the assassination of Alexander II., a determined attempt to kill his successor was made. The Russian police had previous information that such an attempt would be made, from Berlin, London, and Bucharest. On Saturday night a couple of men in a restaurant on the Nevsky attracted the attention of the detectives, who followed and watched them all night . Next day the police were able to watch the posting of six individuals, including three students, at three different parts of the route to be followed by the Tsar. They carried bombs in the shape of books, Of a bag, an opera-glass, and a roll of music. As soon as they had apparently taken their po tions they were pounced upon by the police and secured. Altogether fifteen persons were arrested, twelve men and three women, one of the latter being the landlady of the house at Paulovna, on the Finnish railway, where the bomb manufactory was discovered a day or two after the attempt of the 13th. Nine of the twelve men were students, and the other three were two Polish nobles from Wilna and an apothecary's assistant. Seven of the accused were condemned to be hanged, and the other eight to various terms of imprisonment with bard labour, from twenty years downwards. It was reported at the time that each prisoner was found to have a small bottle containing a most active poison suspended round the neck, next to the bare skin. In case of failure, or refusal at the last moment to accomplish the task, secret agents of the party, who were on the watch all the time, were to strike the chest of the faint-hearted or unsuccessful conspirator, thus smashing the bottle and causing the poison to enter the wound made by the broken glass. The Nihilists seem not to have been discouraged by the last failure, for on the 6th April next a fresh attempt on the emperor's life appears to have been made, though particulars, beyond those of the seizure of several suspected persons, were not allowed to transpire. But it was reported from Odessa that in the month of the same year (1887) 482 officers of the army arrived in that town under a strong military escort. They were accused of participation in the last attempt on the Tsar's life, and were to be transported to Eastern Asia.

  In June the trial of twenty-one Nihilists, accused of various revolutionary acts in the years 1883 and 1884, took place at St. Petersburg. The prisoners included the sons of college councillors, priests, superior officers, a Don Cossack, tradesmen, peasants, and two women, one of them a staff-captain's daughter. Fifteen were condemned to death, but on the Court's recommendation, eight death sentences were mitigated to from four to fifteen years' hard labour, and subsequently the emperor for once reprieved the remaining seven, five of whom were to undergo hard labour in Siberia for life, and the others from eighteen to twenty years each.

  Another blow was sustained by the Nihilists at the end of November, when the police discovered laboratories for the manufacture of dynamite in the Vassili, Ostrou, and Peski quarters of St. Petersburg. No wonder that they began to utter cries of despair towards the end of the year 1887. "Liberalism," they said, in one of their publications, "has not eradicated the feeling of loyalty in society. . . . Even the 'intelligent Liberals' have rejected the invitation to establish free printing offices, . . . or even to serve the revolutionary press abroad by sending it articles for publication." The Messenger of the Will of the People, which was the official exponent of the party during the year, ceased to appear "for want of intellectual and material aid from Russia." "Little is to be expected," the Nihilists said elsewhere, "from the present generation of Russians. . . . Russian society, with its dulness, emptiness, and ignorance, is to blame. . . . Most of the so-called cultured classes belong to that category of passengers who are made to travel in cattle-trucks. . . . Russian society has become a flock of sheep, driven by the whip and the shepherds' dogs."

  Nihilism in 1888.-Little or nothing was heard of Nihilism in that year. There was indeed a rumour in January that a new Nihilist conspiracy against the life of the Tsar had been discovered at St. Petersburg, and that many officers and others had been arrested ; but it went no further than a rumour. Extensive police precautions were adopted at St. Petersburg early in March, in anticipation of Nihilist manifestations on March 13, the anniversary of the death of the late Tsar ; but the day went by without disturbances of any kind. The accident which occurred to the Tsar's train in November 1888 is very generally supposed to have been the result of a Nihilist plot. But the unchangeable despotic character of the Russian Government was again exemplified during the year by its anti-Semitic policy at two extremities of European Russia. Some two thousand Jews received notice to quit Odessa, and the expulsion laws against the persecuted Hebrews were also enforced in Finland. The Finnish Diet having refused to adopt the Russian view of the case, the Government determined upon enforcing the law as it exists in Russia; all the Jews to leave within a year, with the exception of those who had served in the army. According to the emperor's own statement, this wholesale expulsion of the Jews was due to the fact that Jews have been mixed up with all Nihilistic plots.

  In December 1888 the papers reported the discovery by the Russian Government of a ramification of secret societies among the young and educated Armenians, upon the model of the "Young Italy" societies, as they were constituted in 1848. The object of the Armenian societies is revolution against Russian rule, and the establishment of Armenian union and independence.

  Slaughter of Siberian Exiles, and Hunger-Strikes.-Towards the end of the year 1889, the civilised world was horrified by the account of the slaughter of a number of exiles at Yakutsk, on their way to the extreme east of Siberia, near the shore of the Polar Sea. These exiles were not criminals, but exiled by "administrative order," that is to say, they had not been tried and convicted by any tribunal: Government, not the Law, arbitrarily had ordered them to Siberia as suspects. Simply for asking to take with them sufficient food and clothing' for the terrible journey still before them, they were declared to have resisted the authorities, and a number of them shot down; a woman, Sophie Gourewitch, was ripped open by bayonets; the vice-governor himself twice fired at the exiles. Not satisfied with this butchery, the surviving exiles were tried by court-martial; three were sentenced to death, and many others to long terms of penal servitude in the mines. Early in 1890, still more horrifying details of hunger-strikes among the exiles reached Europe, and of the means adopted by the Russian Government to repress them. One lady, Madame Sihida, was dragged out of bed, where she lay ill, and received one hundred blows. She died in two days from the effects.

  Many of her companions in misery took poison ; so did many of the male prisoners. This occurred at Kara, in Eastern Siberia. In fact, the condition of Russian prisons, especially of those where political prisoners are confined, is too horrible to be described in these pages; the moral and physical suffering wantonly inflicted on the victims of a Tsarish cruelty is without a parallel in the history of absolutism. The Tsar cannot be absolved from personal responsibility in the matter: to say that he was not aware of the cruelties practisedin his name, is saying in as many words that his neglect of inquiring into them encouraged them ; but he must know them; they had been frequently communicated to Alexander III., notably in a long letter written in March 1890 by Madame Tshebrikova, a lady of position, and not in any way connected with the Nihilists; but for writing it she was arrested, and sent to Penza, in the Caucasus, and placed under strict police surveillance.

  Occurrences in 1890.-The Russian students having in recent times shown decidedly Liberal tendencies, Government endeavoured to repress them, which led to repeated riots and endless arrests, as many as five hundred and fifty students, who had protested against the new and oppressive statutes promulgated by the authorities, being arrested at Moscow in March 189o. In April all the police stations and prisons of St. Petersburg were full of arrested students; the ringleaders, mostly young men belonging to good families, were eventually sent as private soldiers into the disciplinary battalions near Orenburg.

  In May, fourteen Russians were arrested in Paris, which has always been a favourite place of residence with Nihilists, Colonel Sokoloff, who was expelled from France, Krukoff, a printer, and Prince Krapotkine being among their chiefs. The prisoners above mentioned were proved to have been in possession of bombs, many of which had been manufactured in Switzerland. There were two women among the accused; they were acquitted, the men were sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

  In November in the same year the Russian General Seliverskoff was found in his room in a Paris hotel, shot in the head- ; he died on the following day without having recovered consciousness. He had been a Russian spy on the Nihilists.

  In the same month five Nihilists were tried at St. Petersburg, one of them being a woman, Sophie Gunzburg, who was arrested in Russia, in possession of bombs and revolutionary proclamations. Four of the prisoners were condemned to death. Another trial took place about the same time, and as in the first-mentioned trial the principal figure was a woman, so in this second trial the chief personage was a young girl, Olga Ivanovsky, niece of Privy Councillor Idinsky, director of a department of the Holy Synod. As the names of high ecclesiastical functionaries were concerned in the affair, the authorities shrouded it in more than the usual secrecy, so. that no details have reached the outer world.

 Occurrences from 1891 to Present Date.-The Nihilists appear to have been rather, but not quite, inactive during these later years. In May 1891 a secret printingpress was discovered and seized at St. Petersburg. In November of the same year a far-reaching political conspiracy was discovered at Moscow, 'and some sixty, persons, belonging to the nobility, the literary profession, and the upper middle class, were arrested. In December a great number of arrests were made, some of the accused being found to be in possession of plans and details of the imperial palaces. In 1892 a number of Nihilists were arrested at Moscow, for an alleged conspiracy to kill the Tsar on his return journey from the Crimea. An anonymous letter had warned the authorities that the attempt was to be made at a small railway station. The line was examined, and a bomb discovered under each line of rails. In spite of these failures, the Nihilistic agitation was actively carried on.

  The revolutionists endeavoured to stir up the lower classes against the Tsar by telling them that, though he pretended to supply the masses with food during the famine, he allowed his subordinates to rob the people. The insinuation, however, had but little success with the Russian people of the lower class, brought up in slavish adoration of the emperor, who can do no wrong. In the month of December, Major-General Droszgovski was assassinated at Tashkend, in Russian Turkestan. He had been acting as president of a court-martial for the trial of a number of Nihilists, most of whom were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. To avenge them their friends killed the president.

  In May 1893 the decapitated body of a Russian student was discovered in a forest, near Plussa Station, on the Warsaw railway. The deceased was supposed to have been a member of a secret society, and to have been killed to prevent his revealing its secrets. Twoyoung men were arrested for the crime, and immediately hanged. A widespread Nihilistic conspiracy against the life of the Tsar was discovered (in September 1893) at Moscow, in consequence of which eighty-five university students, eight professors, and five ladies belonging to the, aristocracy, were arrested.

  Early in 1894 the Government Commission appointed to inquire into the condition of Siberian prisons issued its report, in which instances without number were recorded of merciless floggings, lopping off of arms and fingers by sabre cuts, of cannibalism under stress of famine. During the whole of 1892 there was an almost continuous string of convoys of corpses from Onor, the prison on the island of Saghalien, to Rykovskaya, the residence of the authorities, and most of the bodies were terribly mutilated. In 1893, if any one of a band of convicts failed in his work, he was at once put on half rations, then on third rations; and when he could work no more, the inspector finished him with a revolver bullet. What wonder, then, that in November 1894 three secret printing-presses, in full working order, with a great quantity of Nihilistic literature, were discovered at Kieff, at Kharkoff, and at Nicolaieff respectively? The press at Kharkoff was being worked by the students of the university in that city. Upwards of eighty persons were arrested. In September 1895, it was reported that a widespread Nihilistic plot against the life of the Tsar and the imperial family had been discovered by the Russian police.

  Some of the leaders were quietly arrested, while dynamite bombs, arms, and piles of revolutionary pamphlets were seized during a number of domiciliary visits at Moscow. In March of the year 1896 six officers of the garrison of Kieff, including a; colonel, were arrested for participating in a Nihilist conspiracy. According to the Central News, in October 1896 the Russian Custom-house officers confiscated on the Silesian frontier a quantity of light canes destined for sale to the upper classes, and containing in their hollow interior thousands of Nihilist proclamations, printed on tissue paper. The Nihilists, evidently, are still at work. There is a Nihilist club, composed chiefly of Jews, in London, who publish a paper, similar in character to Most's Freiheit (512) in Yiddish, and printed with Hebrew type.

  Nihilistic Finances.-Thenumber of active Nihilists never amounted to more than a few dozen men and women; they may have had twelve or thirteen hundred supporters, who assisted the leaders by distributing their books, pamphlets, &c., concealing them when pursued by the police or otherwise in danger, assisting them to escape from prison, assisting them with money, &c. ; though those who sympathised with the Nihilists, without, however, taking any active part in the propaganda, may be assumed to have been perhaps one hundred thousand. Whence did the Nihilists obtain the means for executing their schemes? for creating a literature, purchasing materials, travelling, carrying out terroristic measures, supporting and delivering prisoners ?

  In 1869 Nechayeff had obtained from Herzen the revolutionary fund collected in Switzerland, and amounting to more than £1ooo; the members of the society, of course, gave their contributions; Lizogoob sacrificed his fortune of about 200,000 roubles to the "cause"; the Justice of the Peace Voinaralski gave 40,000 roubles; a Dr. Weimar, a very active Nihilist, supplied large sums; rich people, who sympathised with Nihilism, but would not compromise themselves, contributed money either anonymously, or ostensibly for charitable purposes. Besides these voluntary contributions, the Nihilists obtained compulsory ones by threatening timorous rich men, or such as were known to have enriched themselves at the expense of the State, that unless they assisted the Nihilistic cause, they would be condemned to death by the Executive Committee. The Nihilists also occasionally helped'themselves to the Government cash ; in 1879 they robbed the State bank of Kharkoff by means of a subterranean passage, and carried off one million and a half of roubles. But their outgoings were considerable; the Moscow mine and the other two attempts made at the same time, for instance, cost nearly £4000,and consequently the Nihilists were often hard pressed for money. The most extravagant reports were circulated at times as to their financial resources; thus theCologne Gazettein April 1879 declared the Nihilistic propaganda to count as many as 19,000 members, and to be possessed of a fund amounting to two millions of roubles. The Nihilists accomplished their objects with a tenth of that amount. In fact, in1881they were driven to imitate the device of Peter's Pence and the Red Cross. In January 1882 they founded the association of the Red Cross, and made appeals in the Will of the People for contributions.

  This appeal was published by Lavroff in the Paris paper L'Intransigeant, which led to his expulsion from France. However, according to the Will ofthe People and other Nihilistic publications,53,000roubles were received in 1881. But the figures dealing with Nihilistic finances can never be anything but approximate. They received contributions from French, Swiss, German, English, Italian, and Austrian sympathisers, a fact showing the international unity of the Revolutionists, and the extensive foreign connections of the Russian Nihilists.

  The Secret Press.-The revolutionary party early felt the necessity of propagating their opinions by the press, hence in the earliest stages of the movement, as far back as the year 186o, secret printing-presses were set up ; and all the various organisations established afterwards, attempted to have their own presses ; but the difficulty of maintaining secrecy was too great; one after the other they were discovered and seized. At last, in 1876, Stephanovitch, a leading spirit among the Nihilists, succeeded in establishing a secret printing-press at Kieff. He lived in one house, and had the press at another. A friend of his who lodged with him was arrested; he sent a note to Stephanovitch to warn him; but the messenger handed the note to the police, which led to the arrest of Stephanovitch. His sole object now was to save the printing apparatus. A woman and her husband presented themselves before the landlord of the house where the printing office was, and producing the key of the rooms, the woman told the landlord that she was Stephanovitch's sister, who had given it her, and given her and her husband permission to occupy the rooms till his return. The landlord had no suspicion, and made no objection. The pair secretly removed all the printing apparatus and left the house. Soon after the police made their appearance ; they had made a house to house visitation at Kieff in search of the printing office, and the few types and proofs they found here and there left in corners, satisfied them that they had come too late. The printing apparatus was carried to Odessa, but what became of it there, is not known.

  A clever and enterprising Jew, Aaron Zundelevic, a native of Wilna, in 1877managed to smuggle into St. Petersburg all the necessary apparatus for a printing office, which could print works of some size. He learned the compositor's art, and taught it to four other persons. For four years the police discovered nothing, until treachery and an accident came to their aid. Not only the members of the organisation "Land and Liberty," which maintained the office, but even the editors and contributors of the journal printed there, did not know where it was . It was occupied by four persons. Mary Kriloff, who acted as mistress of the house, was a woman of about forty-five. She had been implicated in various conspiracies. A pretty, fair girl passed as the servant of Madame Kriloff. Intercourse with the outer world was maintained by a young man of aristocratic, but silent, manners. He was the son of a general, and nephew of a senator, and was supposed to hold a ministerial appointment, but his portfolio contained only MSS. and proofs of the prohibited paper. The other compositor, Lubkin, was only known by the nickname of the "bird," given to him on account of his voice. He was only twenty-three years of age; consumption was written on his face; having no passport, he was compelled always to remain indoors. When after four hours' desperate resistance the printing office of "Land and Liberty" fell into the hands of the military, he shot himself.

  The apparatus, as a rule, was extremely simple ; a few cases of various kinds of type, a small cylinder of a kind of gelatinous substance, a large cylinder covered with cloth, which served as the press, a few jars of printing ink, a few brushes and sponges. Everything was so arranged that in a quarter of an hour it could be concealed in a large cupboard. To allay any suspicion the dvornik could conceive, they made him enter the rooms under various pretences, having first removed every vestige of the printing operation.

  We have seen in preceding paragraphs how the capture by the police of one printing-press speedily led to the setting up of another; and that the number scattered all over Russia must have been great is evident from the number which were discovered, and from which the multitude of those undiscovered may be inferred. And their publications were scattered all over the country. Handbills and placards seemed to grow out of the earth., The army was deluged with them, the labourer found them in his pocket, the emperor on his writing-table. Nihilists wandered all over Russia, leaving them in thousands at every halting-place. Jessy Helfmann was a travelling postoffice; her pockets were always full of proclamations, newspapers, handbills, and tickets for concerts and balls for the benefit of prisoners, or of the secret press.

  Nihilistic Measures of Safety.-When Nihilism began to assume terroristic features, and the vigilance of the police consequently became more strict, and arrests were of daily occurrence, the Nihilists had to adopt various means for their self-protection. A primary condition was the possession of a passport, for in Russia every one above the peasantry must be registered, and have a passport. Many young men matriculated as students, not with a view of attending university lectures, but to obtain the card of legitimation. Non-students' at first paid high prices for passports, but eventually took to manufacturing them.

  Every society established its own passport office, forging seals and signatures. One of these offices, furnished with every necessary appliance, was discovered by the police at Moscow in 1882. " Illegal" men, that is to say, those who lived with a false passport, or one lent by a friend, of course did not go by their true names, and their correspondence was taken care of by friends. The Nihilist had to lead a very regular life, not to excite the suspicions of the dvornik. Their larger meetings took place in "conspiracy-quarters," which were carefully selected. The windows must be so placed that signals can easily be displayed or changed. The walls of the room must not be too thin, and the doors close accurately, so that sounds may not reach the outside. There must be a landing outside, to command the staircase, so that in case of a surprise a few resolute men can resist a troop of gendarmes, until all compromising papers and other objects are removed.

  The conspiracy-quarters generally were regular arsenals ; at the storming of the office of the Willof the People, every one of the five Nihilists was armed with two revolvers ; the dozen gendarmes were afraid to advance, and soldiers had to be sent for; from eighty to a hundred shots were fired on that occasion. When to some of the Nihilists all these precautions became irksome, and they consequently neglected them, Alexander Michailoff, to whom they therefore gave the nickname ofdvornik, severely censured them; he would follow his associates in the street, to see if they behaved with caution, or he would suddenly stop one,,and ask him to read a signboard, and if he found him shortsighted, insist on his wearing glasses. He insisted on their dressing respectably, and would often himself find the means for their doing so. He himself lived like the Red Indian on the war-path. He endeavoured to know all the spies, to beware of them; he had a list of about three hundred passages through houses and courtyards, and by his intimate knowledge of places of concealment, saved many a companion from arrest. The Nihilists frequently change their lodgings, and keep them secret. Then they rely also for their safety on the Ukrivaheli, or Concealers, who form a large class in every position, beginning with the aristocracy and the upper middle class, and reaching even down to the police, who, sharing the revolutionary ideas, make use of their social or official position to shelter the combatants by concealing, whenever necessary, both objects and men.

  Strange causes sometimes led to the most unlikely people becoming '° Concealers." Thus a Madame Horn, a Danish lady, seventy years of age, became one. She had married a Russian, who held some small appointment in the police. When the Princess Dagmar became the wife of the hereditary Prince of Russia, Madame Horn wished the Danish ambassador to obtain for her husband some appointment in the establishment of the new archduchess. The ambassador was rude enough to laugh at her. This turned her in favour of the Nihilists, who she hoped would punish the ambassador. She began by taking care of the Nihilists' forbidden books, attended to their correspondence, and eventually concealing the conspirators themselves. Thanks to her age, her prudence, presence of mind, she escaped all suspicion. Her husband, whom she ruled absolutely, had to furnish her with all the police intelligence he could gather.

   The Nihilists in Prison.-Inspite of all their precautionary measures, many of the Nihilists, as we have seen, fell into the hands of the police. The historian, unfortunately, has no impartial reports to rely on as to their treatment in prison; only once, during the ministry of Count Loris-Melikoff, Russian papers were allowed to partly reveal the secrets of Russian imprisonment and Siberian exile, which virtually confirmed all the "underground" literature had asserted, and these revelations are horrifying. They show up the imperfection and cruelty of Russian state institutions, the brutality and irresponsible arbitrariness of Russian officials. We find that the accused are kept in prison-and what prisons! -for two or three years before being brought to trial, and for what crime ? simply for having given away a Socialistic pamphlet. We find women in large numbers undressed in the presence of, or even by, the gendarmes themselves, and searched by them, to the accompaniment of coarse jokes. We are told how prisoners were tortured, how nervous prisoners were disturbed in their sleep, to entice them in their state of excitement to make confessions. Condemned prisoners were treated with the same refined cruelty.

   There is a large prison at Novobfelgorod, near Kharkoff, whence the prisoners addressed in 1878-that is, before the attempts on the emperor's life-an appeal to Russian society, from which we will quote a few facts. In a dark cell, whose window is partly smeared over with dark paint, lay Plotnikoff, on boards only thinly covered with felt, without covering or pillow, terribly weakened by years of solitary confinement. One day he rose from his boards and began reciting the words of a favourite poet. Suddenly his gaoler rushed in. "How dare you speak loud here! " he cried; `° perfect silence must reign here. I shall have you put in irons." The prisoner vainly pleaded that his legal term for being in irons had expired, and that he was ill. The irons were again fastened on him. Alexandroff, another prisoner, heard some peasants singing in the distance; their song found an echo in his heart, and he sang the melody. He had ceased for some time when the guard entered his cell. "Who has allowed you to sing?" he said; "I will give you 'a reminder," and with his fist struck him in the face. Even common criminals are better treated. They are allowed to sit together, two or three in one cell. Serakoff was put into the carver for not saluting a gaoler standing a little way off. The career is a cage totally dark, and so small, that a prisoner has to remain in it in a stooping position. It is behind the privy, whence the soil is but seldom removed.

  The prisoners in the fortress Petropaulovski are no better off. Their cells are dark, cold, and damp; the windows being darkened with paint, lights have to be burnt nearly all day. Their food consists of watery soup and porridge for dinner, and a piece of bread morning and evening. The stoves are heated only once every three days, hence the walls are wet, and the floors literally full of puddles. The prisoners are allowed to take exercise every other day, but for a quarter of an hour only. They have no other distraction. When Subkoffski once made cubes of bread to study stereometry, they were taken away from him. "Prisoners are not allowed amusements," he was told. No wonder that disease, insanity, attempts at suicide, and deaths are of daily occurrence. Hunger-mutinies were another consequence of this treatment. A very serious one occurred at Odessa in December 1882. It arose in this way. A prisoner asked for invalid's food, but the prison doctor replied, "You are a workman; invalid's food costs seventy kopecks ; you will do without it." Another prisoner, a student, asked for some medicine for a diseased bone in his hand. The same doctor replied, "Suck your hand, you have plenty of time." When this prisoner shortly after wanted to consult another surgeon, the prison doctor replied, "You want no doctor, but a hangman." The final circumstance which brought about the mutiny was the order of the gaoler to confine a prisoner who was consumptive, and had asked for a hammock, in the tarter. Then the prisoners sent for the head of the police, but he only abused them. Then the hunger-mutiny broke out. The prisoners refused to take their food, but the governor of the prison ordered those who could not be persuaded to eat to be kept alive by means of injections.

  The horrors of transportation to Siberia have often been described. We need not repeat the fearful tale. But we may state that these horrors are intensified for political prisoners, whilst common criminals are allowed to soften them if they have means. Thus Yokhankeff, the wellknown forger, who was tried at St. Petersburg in 1879 for embezzling thousands, instead of having to make his way partly on foot and partly by rail, was allowed to travel with every comfort, accompanied by a female, and to put up at the best hotelsen route.

  The Russian Government, even under Alexander II., became ashamed,, it seems, of the many trials, and resorted, to avoid this public scandal, to removing suspected persons by what is called the administrative process, an extra judicial procedure under which hundreds of persons were dragged away from their homes and families without trial of any kind, no one knowing what became of them. We may, however, surmise that many were sent to Siberia, since in 1880 further prison accommodation had to be constructed in Eastern Siberia in consequence of the great influx of political prisoners.

  What I have stated as to the treatment of prisoners is but what is based on authentic documents. Had I quoted from the "underground" press, I should be accused of exaggeration; but taking the above statements only, does such conduct become a civilised government?

  Nihilist Emigrants.-It is difficult to estimate their number. Many of them conceal themselves to escape the Russian spies scattered all over the Continent, and not to involve the countries affording them an asylum in diplomatic difficulties. There may be about one hundred exiles in Switzerland; there are said to be about seventy in Paris, and perhaps fifty in London; but these numbers can only be approximate, and from the nature of circumstances, must always be changing. Some of these fugitives date from the earliest stages of the revolutionary movement before 1863, as, for instance, M. Elpidin, the bookseller, at Geneva. Others, like Lavroff, were involved in the conspiracies of 1866 and 1869. Others belong to the Socialistic propaganda, like Prince Krapotkine. Others, again, were members of the “ Land and Liberty" or "Black Division" parties. After 1878 there wasa large addition to the emigration. But few of these exiles have been able to save any portion of their property. Before engaging in the movement some sold their estates, others leased them to their relations, and allowed them to be burdened with debts, so that in the end but little remainsto.be confiscated by the Government.

  Most, even those who receive assistance from home, are compelled to rely on their own exertions. Some give lessons in music, in Russian, in science; others write for Russian and foreign newspapers. Others, again (about twenty),.are employed in the three Russian printing-offices at Geneva; and perhaps the same number practise the trades of locksmiths, carpenters, and shoemakers, which they once learned for the purposes of the propaganda. Many, unable to work, their mental and physical powers having been broken by long incarceration, are supported by the contributions of the party. To suppose, as it often has been supposed, that the Nihilistic movement in Russia is directed by these emigrants, is a mistake. The telegraph cannot be employed by them, and correspondence is too slow and unsafe. Whatever has to be done in Russia, must be decided on and carried out by the members residing there. The exile ceases to take any active part in the revolution at home, though he may indirectly influence it by his literary efforts, as, for instance, Krapotkine and Stepniak have done to a large extent. The death of this latter, so well known by his brilliant and authoritative work, La Russia Sotterranea, caused great sorrow to all true lovers of Russia. He was accidentally killed on the 23rd December 1895, when crossing the railway near Chiswick, by being caught by the engine of a train, knocked down, and fearfully mutilated.

  Stepniak's real name was Serge Michaelovitch Kravchinsky. After his death the St. Petersburg press asserted that it was he who assassinated Adjutant-General Mesentsoff (616), the chief of the political police, by stabbing him with a dagger. But this was never proved.

  According to Dalziel, six officers of the garrison of Kieff, including a colonel, were arrested in March 1896 for participation in a Nihilist plot; whence it would appear that Nihilism is not dead yet, nor is it likely to die until it has attained its aim; and the present emperor does not seem likely to voluntarily satisfy it.

  Nihilistic Literature.-Thebibliography of Nihilism is already an extensive one. Among the most important newspapers and periodicals we have:-i . The Bell(Kolokol), edited by Herzen and Bakunin, from  1st July 1857 to 1869. London and Geneva. After Herzen's death it was revived for a short time in 1870; six numbers in 4t o appeared.