RUSSIA. 



745 



ments or decorations, two were merchants, one 

 was a nobleman of independent position, and 

 one was a student. The prisoner avowed her 

 act and its motives. The Government confi- 

 dently counted on a conviction; yet the jury 

 unhesitatingly gave a verdict of acquittal, and 

 their decision was received with applause in 

 the court-room and public commotion on the 

 streets. The result was approved by the news- 

 papers so heartily that four of them immediate- 

 ly received warning for their comments upon 

 it, and was generally accepted as an expression 

 of the public opinion of the nation condemning 

 the whole system of police. The Government 

 was offended at the demonstrations, and, while 

 it was impelled to retire General Trepoff from 

 his position as chief of police, it promoted 

 him to be a general of cavalry. The news- 

 papers were placed under a censorship, meet- 

 ings were forbidden, the students were sub- 

 jected to surveillance, many officers of liberal 

 views were dismissed, and the intention was 

 announced of abolishing trials by jury for po- 

 litical offenses of a grave character and for as- 

 saults on functionaries while engaged in the dis- 

 charge of their duties. Vera Sassulitch escaped 

 from notice for a short time after the trial, and 

 orders for her arrest and imprisonment were 

 issued without delay. An official order was 

 published, near the beginning of June, directing 

 that political offenders be tried, according to 

 their character, either before the tribunal by 

 which the indictment may have been drawn 

 up, or by the Supreme Court of Justice. On 

 the 1st day of June the Supreme Court of Re- 

 vision, having before it the case of Vera Sas- 

 sulitch, directed that her acquittal should be 

 canceled, on the ground of informality in the 

 procedure. 



The confidence of the Government received 

 another shock on the 16th of August, when 

 General de Mesentzoff, the successor of Gen- 

 eral Trepoff as chief of the secret police, was 

 stabbed at St. Petersburg while taking his 

 morning walk, and died at five o'clock in the 

 evening of the same day. General Makaroff, 

 chief of the corps of gendarmes, who accom- 

 panied General Mesentzoff and tried to arrest 

 the murderers, was fired upon by them. This 

 attack and other similar attacks upon officers 

 of this branch of the service were ascribed to 

 the Nihilists, who manifested renewed activity 

 soon after the close of the war, and whose op- 

 erations became more threatening and open as 

 the year advanced, until at last they seemed to 

 be about to expose the Government to embar- 

 rassment if not to danger. A secret association, 

 calling itself the " National Government," pub- 

 lished a circular in April, containing a revolu- 

 tionary programme, and calling upon the peo- 

 ple to take up arms. The arrival of fifteen 

 students of the University of Kiev, who had 

 been sentenced to exile for breaches of public 

 order in u the cause of the truth," as their 

 partisans represented it, gave the signal for 

 disturbances at Moscow on the loth of April. 



Shortly afterward a ministerial order was pub- 

 lished calling attention to the law which pro- 

 hibited assemblages of people in public places 

 where disturbances would be likely to be cre- 

 ated. An account of the organization of the 

 Nihilists at the time of the assassinations of 

 the police officers, and of their connection with 

 the assassinations, was given in a letter from 

 Odessa, which was published in the u Neues 

 Tagblatt " of Vienna, as follows : " The Nihil- 

 ists may be regarded as the front rank of the 

 malcontents in Russia; the innumerable forces 

 of the opposition who are behind them do not 

 actively support them, but tolerate them as the 

 champions of a cause which is to some extent 

 their own. In a meeting of the so-called Con- 

 stitutionalist party at Kiev it was expressly 

 stated that, although the ideals which the Ni- 

 hilists have in view can not be accepted, their 

 efforts to overthrow the existing* order of 

 things must be regarded with sympathy. This 

 is the universal feeling of all people in Russia 

 who think. . . . The citadel of Russian des- 

 potism which alone had not been undermined 

 by the waves of the revolution is the third 

 division of the State Chancellery, or secret 

 police, and the Nihilists determined to attack 

 it. ... War has been declared against the 

 blue uniform, and the first victims have been, 

 besides General Mesentzoff and the police agent 

 at Rostov, the chief of the gendarmes in Khar- 

 kov, the chief of the secret police at Taganrog, 

 and a colonel of gendarmes at Pultava. . . . 

 The organization of the party is a very power- 

 ful one ; each government has a principal com- 

 mittee, and sub-committees which are called 

 'Krushki.' These sub-committees exist even 

 in the Caucasus. The leaders of the com- 

 mittees are not known even to their members, 

 and the central committee at St. Petersburg, 

 which calls itself the * National Government,' 

 is shrouded in impenetrable secrecy. The cen- 

 tral committees obtain printed orders, arms, 

 and plans of operations direct from St. Peters- 

 burg. At Odessa alone there are several thou- 

 sand members of the society. The panic in 

 Government circles is indescribable; the or- 

 ganization is said to have penetrated the 

 schools, universities, and even military acad- 

 emies; and the police do not venture to lay 

 hands on the Nihilists, fearing the secret sen- 

 tences of the revolutionary tribunals." The 

 correspondence added that the organization 

 had powerful supporters in the highest ranks 

 of society, and that a lady who was one of the 

 leaders of Russian fashion had been arrested a 

 few days before, upon the evidence of a num- 

 ber of letters found in her house from the 

 chief of the Nihilist Committee at St. Peters- 

 burg. 



The " Official Messenger " of St. Petersburg 

 early in September published an article de- 

 claring that the patience of the Government 

 had been exhausted by the series of criminal 

 acts committed by a large number of ill-dis- 

 posed persons, culminating in the assassina- 



