The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1880-06-01 00:00:00

THE RUSSIAN NIHILIST TRIALS.

Among the accused who were condemned, Dr. Weimar
wee in every way • man of whom his country seemed to
have reason to be proud. He is in personal bearing a
gallant gentleman. As a physician he has devoted hie
time and skill to the service of his suffering countrymen.
He is (or was, for to-day he is • drudge in the deadly
mines) decorated with Russian and Roumanian orders and
with the medal for the Turkish war. He was with the
troops who crossed the Balkans under Gourko—• splendid
feat of arms. Dr. Weimar wee amused of having supplied
Solovieff —the squalid and slinking wretch who lately fired
at and missed the Czar with poison. As a proof, a
chemist's book was produced, and Dr. Weimar's name
was said to be there registered as the purchaser of poison
on a certain day in February. But when the book came
to be examined in Court it turned out that Dr. Weimar
had bought the drugs in June for • definite purpose. He
meant to poison the dog of a H. Petline, and this state-
ment wee confirmed by the owner of the hound. The
whole affair was slovenly and disgraceful to the prosecu-
tion, but the Prosecutor declared himself quite satisfied.
Dr. Weimer had bought poison. Solovieff had possessed
poison. Therefore Dr. Weimar WU in league with
81°I.eTiair• . . . . .

--Witnesses were brought forward to speak to the
character of Dr. Weimar. "Their testimony was a shower
of praises, both as to his moral character and his bravery
in war." Supposing the charges against Dr. Weimar
true, it would appear that an exemplary citizen, brave,
skilled, accomplished, so despaired of the condition of his
country that he conspired with miscreants like Solovieff
and aided other dastardly asaassins. The Prosecutor sai.l:
" Gentlemen. I could have produced a series of witnesses
whose testimony would have been quite the reverse.
Unfortunately all of them are absent." The evidence
about a certain mare called Baba or Barbara, which Dr.
Weimar was said to have lent to the political assassins,
was even more contradictory than the usual evidence in
trials about horses. It seemed impossible to find out
whether a mare which was produced was really the fleet.
footed Barbera or some less notorious steed. Dr. Weimar
was accused of having provided Solovied with a revolver,
and he answered Solovieff had consulted him under a
feigned name, had noticed • trophy of arms in his room,
such a trophy as any army surgeon who had seen service
might possess, and had mired the Doctor to select for him
a heavy revolver for hunting purposes. The result is that
the prisoner is sentenced to something worse than death.
The mines may be more salubrious places than Western
opinion holds them, but fifteen years in them sounds like
a punishment that will torment the victim more and hold
him long. No case could bear more direct evidence to the
terrible condition of Russian society and RlLlAlloll justice.
Either a man who seems to have been an exemplary
citizen in other respects was driven by despotism into
secret and dastardly treason, or Dr. Weimar is falsely
condemned and unjustly punished. In either alternative,
if the reports of his trial are correct, that trial was a
scandal even to military law.