The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-04-27 00:00:00

A SEMI-POLITICAL TRIAL,

The Times of Monday published the following letter from
their Correspondent at St. Petersburg, under date April 16
All the world here is at present talking about the
trial of Vera Zasulitcb, the young person who, about
two months ago, made an attempt on the life of
General Trepoff, the Prefect of the city. The trial
was held on Friday, and since that time the political
complications and the Eastern Question have been
gaite thrown into the background.
The incident which gave rise to "the affair
Zasulitch" happened on the 25th of July of last year.
At that time a considerable number of young people of
both sexes aecused of revolutionary propaganda were
confined in one of the it. Petersburg prisons. Some
of them were already condemned and ethers were
awaiting their trial. On the morning of July 25,
General' Trepuff visited the prison and found some
of the prisoners walking about and talking with
each other in the inner court. This seemed
to him an infraction of the prison rules, and he
asked explanations. One of the prisoners, Bogo-
luboff by name, replied that he was already con-
demned, and that he was not infringing any rule in
talking to anyone who was not implicated in the same
affair as himself. .The answer appeared to the General
impertinent, and accordingly Bogoluboff was ordered
to the carcer—that is to say, the cell for disciplinary
punishment. On his way thither he again met the
Prefect, and this time did not take off his cap. Irri-
tated by this want of respect, the General raised his
hand, apparently with the intention of striking.
Whether he really struck or net is uncertain, but
Bogoluboff's cap fell to the ground, and suddenly
loud expressions of indignation issued from the
open windows of the surrounding cells. As to
how the disturbance was quelled reports differ,
but it is quite certain that General Trepoff received
to make an example of Bogolubc if, and, accord-
ingly, ordered him to be flogged with birch.
twigs. The order was executed in one of the cor-
ridors, and gave rise to a new disturbance similar in
kind to the preceding one. From the prison the ex-
citement and indignation soon spread to the friends of
the prisoners, and from them to the public generally.
1 remember how the thing was discussed at the time
and how remarks were made about " Vashi-Bazouks
nearer home than Eulgaria " by people who could
certainly not be accused of any sympathy with revo
lutionary tendencies. A memoir describing the affair
was sent to me anonymously, and several persons
possessing special information volunteered their tes-
timony; but the memoir was so evidently written in
a biased spirit, and the evidence as a whole was so
contradictory, that I determined to await the result
of the official investigation which the officials assured
me was already begun and would soon be completed.
Among the many who were indignant at. the so-
called " Bashi-Bazoukism" of the Prefect was Vera
Zasulitch, daughter of an officer of the Line. Though
only about 26 years of age, she had already consider-
able experience of police discipline in its milder forms.
At the age of 17 she had been arrested on suspicion of
being implicated in revolutionary designs, and after
two years confinement had been liberated without
having been brought to trial. A few days after her
liberation she was again arrested, and without any
legal formalities was despatched to Krestsi, a small
town in the province of Novgorod. On arriving
at that place with only two roubles in her
pocket, she was told she must live there under
police supervision until further orders. This was
in April, 1871. In June she was allowed to go and
live in Tver with a brother-in-law who was kept
there under police supervision in consequence of being
implicated in revolutionary propaganda. Next year
the brother-in-law was suspected of having given pro-
hibited hooks to the Seminarists, and was accordingly
transferred to a small town further eastward. Vera
was brought to dt. Petersburg to be questioned about
the prohibited books, and was then despatched to her
brether-in-law's new domicile. Towards the end of
1873 she was transferred to Kharkeff, and remained
there under police supervision till September, 1875,
when she was at last liberated from all restraint and
allowed to live where she pleased. How she formed
the resolution of shooting General Trepoff may be beat
described in her own words :
" Mixing arrived in St. Petersburg I heard about the
Incident .n the prison from various people whom I hap-
pened to meet They related how the prisoners who had
made a disturbance were put into the career, and how they
were maltreated by the policemen. About Boguluboff I
heard that he had been flogged till he stopped shrieking.
Perhaps there was sonic exaggeration in the account. As I
had myself experienced long solitary confinement I could
imagine what a frightful impression the whole aff Air must have
produced on all the political prisoners, not to speak of those
who had been subjected to maltreatment. I know by expe-
rience the morbidly excited, nervous condition produced by
solitary imprisonment, and the majority of prisoners in
questien had been already canfined more than three years
Seine of them had gone mad and others had committed
suicide. What cruelty it was to make them bear all that,
simply because one of them had not taken off his cap when
he met an official the second time. On me it made the im-
pression, not of a punishment, but of an insult infficted from
personal enmity. It seemed to me that such a thing could
not and ought not to pass unnoticed. I waited to see
whether some one would take the matter in hand, but
all were silent, and nothing prevented Trepoff or any
other ii fbiential official from repeating such arbitrary acts.
Seeing no other means of directing public attention to the
affair, I determined, at the price of my own rid% to prove
that a human being may not be insulted in that way with
impunity. It is a terrible thing to raise one's hand against
a fellow creature, but I could find no other means
It was all the same to me whether I killed or wounded
the Prefect; and when I fired at him I did not aim at any
particular place."
All these and many other detaqs have been pretty
generally known in St. Petersburg for some time, and
accordingly the trial was awaitc d with intense inte-
rest. Some influential people thought that, in order
to avoid a public scandal, an exceptional course of
procedure should be taken; but this opinion was not
adopted by the authorities. The case was tried by a
jury in the ordinary way, and full publicity was
secured by sending tickets of achniseion to the leading
representatives of the Press. On the Bench behind
the Judges set some of the highest dignitaries of the
realm, among others the Imperial Chancellor, Prince
Gortchakoff.
At eleven o'clock the three Judges—young men in
dark blue uniforms adorned with gold leers—took their
places on the bench, with the Public Prosecutor on the.
right hand and the Clerk of the Court on the left, in
uniforms not easily distinguished from those of the
Judges. The procedure need not be described in de-
tail, for it closely resembles that of an English
Criminal Court. The jury was duly empanelled and
the witnesses examined. The prosecutor showed good
and sufficient reasone why the prisoner should be con-
demned, while the counsel for the defence showed good
and sufficient reasons why she should be acquitted. Then
the Judge summed me, and the jury retired to consider
their verdict. All thee are thing's with which Eng-
lishmen are quite familiar, but there was one thing
which could not but seem to an Englishman very
strange; though the accused admitted that she had
dangerously wounded General Trepoff, and was quite
indifferent as to whether she wounded or killed him,
the jurY returneel a verdict of "Not guilty," and the
public on hearing this decision, expreesed their ap-
proval in wild, vociferous applause.
From these facts some people may perhaps draw the
conclusion that Russian juries must lee utterly
ignorant of the most elementary principles of evi-
dence, and the Russian public singularly insensible to