724 



RUSSIA. 



his class, and had sold it to procure money to 

 enable an accomplice to leave the country. 

 Among the prisoners were two Jews, and 

 among those who evaded arrest a much larger 

 proportion. There was evidence given during 

 the trial of four centers of revolutionary 

 activity one in St. Petersburg, one in Vilna, 

 a third either at Kiev or Kharkov, and a fourth 

 in Siberia. One of the Poles from Vilna had 

 contributed large sums of money toward the 

 revolutionary cause. All of the prisoners 

 pleaded guilty, and some made speeches in 

 justification of their action. Seven of them 

 were condemned to death, and the others to 

 long terms of imprisonment. Five of the con- 

 demned, named Generaloff, Andrejushkin, 

 Ossipanoff, Shevireff, and Uljanoff, were exe- 

 cuted on May 20. In June twenty-one Nihi- 

 lists were tried before a military court. The 

 chief prisoner was Hermann Alexander Lopa- 

 tin, the organizer of the scheme for killing 

 Col. Sudeikin, which was carried out on Dec. 

 28, 1883, by Starodvorsky and Konashevich, 

 two others of the prisoners, and by Degaieff, 

 alias Jaklonsky, who escaped to the United 

 States. Lopatin, with a young woman named 

 Saloff, the daughter of a staff-officer, and Sook- 

 homlin, an official's son, established a branch 

 of the central revolutionary organization in 

 1884, which Lopatin directed until, in the same 

 year, he was arrested in connection with the 

 Sudeikin murder. Jakobovich, a student, who 

 had set on foot the Young Party of the Will of 

 the People and advocated a system of industrial 

 and agrarian terrorism, succeeded Lopatin as 

 head of the St. Petersburg group. With these 

 were tried Ivanoff and Peter Elko, who di- 

 rected revolutionary operations in the south of 

 Russia, and their subordinates and agents who 

 helped them to make bombs and conduct a 

 secret printing-office and who committed vari- 

 ous mail- robberies and other crimes. Of the 

 accused, fifteen were sentenced to be hanged, 

 but the punishment was changed by the Czar 

 to imprisonment for life or for long terms. In 

 the beginning of November eighteen officers, 

 five of the navy and the rest belonging mostly 

 to regiments stationed in the neighborhood of 

 Kiev, were tried by a secret military tribunal 

 at St. Petersburg on the charge of forming 

 circles in which the members pledged them- 

 selves in case of a revolutionary outbreak to 

 render clandestine aid to the revolutionists and 

 to take no part in suppressing them if it could 

 be avoided. Most of them were condemned to 

 deportation to Siberia. 



Restrictions on Education. The attempted as- 

 sassination of the Czar in March followed upon 

 the adoption of harsher regulations in the uni- 

 versities. The Government, in consequence of 

 the fermentation that was discovered among 

 the student class, closed the Institution for 

 Midwifery and other schools that seemed to be 

 most infected. In August a circular was issued 

 by the Minister of Education ordering the dis- 

 trict managers to refuse to enter children of 



humble parentage on the rolls of the gynmasia 

 and pro-gymnasia, which are the only prepar- 

 atory schools for the universities. Formerly 

 the Government encouraged the expansion of 

 education of the approved classical kind among 

 the children of small tradesmen, and received 

 them into the public service, expecting thus 

 to create a counterpoise to the disaffected 

 aristocratic class that has hitherto engrossed 

 all higher education and public employment. 

 The discovery that the educated proletarians 

 are as open to revolutionary teachings as the 

 aristocracy has led to the reversal of this policy, 

 and henceforth, unless they reveal exceptional 

 promise, the sons of shopkeepers or persons in 

 humble employment will not be admitted to 

 the preparatory schools, since long experience 

 has shown that such youth "should not be 

 raised from the circle to which they belong, 

 and be thereby led to despise their parents, to 

 become discontented with their lot, and irri- 

 tated against the inevitable inequalities of ex- 

 isting social positions." The directors of the 

 schools are furthermore ordered to exclude 

 students the moral character of whose family- 

 life is such as to exercise a pernicious influence 

 upon their school companions. Severe regula- 

 tions were adopted in July regarding the ad- 

 mission of students to the St. Petersburg Uni- 

 versity. Restrictions are placed in the way of 

 Jews entering, and all students must bring 

 certificates as to their moral character and 

 loyalty as well as in regard to their competency, 

 and while at the university must reside either 

 with their parents or with guardians who will 

 be responsible for their conduct. 



In December the Univer.-ity of Moscow was 

 closed in consequence of a serious disturbance, 

 during which the Government inspector was 

 attacked and the rector, Count Kapnist, was 

 hissed. Finally the Cossacks were called out, 

 and order was restored by means of the knout. 

 Several hundred students were arrested and 

 expelled. 



Laws against Foreigners. On March 26, 1887, 

 a ukase was issued prohibiting Poles of other 

 nationalities or other foreigners from acquiring, 

 leasing, or farming land in Russian Poland or 

 in other western provinces of the empire. 

 This decree is in direct contravention of the 

 act signed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, 

 which secured to Poles the property rights 

 that they possessed or might acquire in any 

 part of their divided kingdom, and granted to 

 them the right to own land in all of the terri- 

 tories of Russia. It affected many Austrian 

 Poles and aristocratic families in Austria and 

 other countries of Europe, and although the 

 German Government did not demur, notwith- 

 standing the fact that many German subjects 

 were prejudiced in their property rights, the 

 Austrian Government, at the instance of Polish 

 deputies, protested against the violation of 

 treaty obligations. The regulations under 

 which foreigners are allowed to carry on busi- 

 ness in Russia were made more restrictive, and 



