The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-18 00:00:00

RUSSIA.

We find the following in the St. Petersburgh
Journal of the 6th :—" The pernicious doctrines
which produced disturbance and revolt in the whole
of Western Europe, and which threatened the com-
plete destruction of the order and prosperity of na-
tions, have unfortunately produced an echo, although
a feeble one, in our country. But in Russia.
where a holy faith, love for the Monarch and de-
votedness to the throne, based on the national cha-
racter, have remained unshaken in all hearts, the
evil intentions of a handful of men of no influence,
most of them young and without morality, who had
dreamed the possibility of trampling under foot the
most sacred rights of religion, law, and propriety,
would only have assumed a dangerous developement
in the event of the vigilance of the Government not
having discovered the evil in its origin. It results,
from the investigations which have taken place, that
a certain number of young men, some completely
perverted in heart and mind, others victims of impru-
debt and perfidious insinuations, had formed a secret
society whose object was the violent overthrow of our
political organization and to substitute for it one of
their own fashion, which would only have been
anarchy. Blasphemies and audacious speeches
against the sacred person of the Emperor, false
interpretations of the acts of the Government, such
was the programme of these meetings, such were
the questions agitated whilst waiting for the mo-
ment to execute their sinister projects. By order of
his Majesty the Emperor a commission of inquiry
was instituted. This commission having made its
report at the end of a few months of the most careful
investigations, his Imperial Majesty deigned to grant
a full and entire amnesty to all the persons who had
been seduced into this criminal plot either from
chance or want of reflection. As to the true crimi-
nals they were tried by a military commission, whose
decision was referred to the tribunal, which declared
the accused guilty of the crime of conspiracy to
overthrow the existing laws and political order
of the empire, and condemned them to the
punishment of death. They are as follows :—Michael
l3outaschevitch, Petraschevoky, honorary councillor;
Nicholas Spesckneff, gentleman, no longer in service ;
Nicholas Mombelli, lieutenant in the guards ; Ni-
cholas Grigorieff, lieutenant in the guards ; Theodore
Lvoff, captain in the guards; Nicolas .Pilippoff, stu-
dent of the University of St. Petersburgh; Dmitry
Akhs-chasroumoff, bachelor in letters ; Alexander
Rhanikoff, pupil of the University of St. Peters-
burgh ; Theodore Dostvievsky, retired assessor of a
college ; Constantine Desbout, councillor of a college ;
Ilippolyte Desbout, secretary of Government ; Felix
Toll, master of Russian literature, without rank in
the service ; John Jastyembski, honorary coun-
cillor ; Alexander Plestcheioff, gentleman not in the
service ; Nicholas Kaschkine, honorary councillor;
Basil Golovinski, honorary councillor; Alexander
Parma, lieutenant in the guards ; Constantine Tim-
kowsky, honorary councillor; Alexander Europens
retired secretary of a college ; Peter Schaposchnikoff,
citizen. his Majesty the Emperor after having read
the report in question of the Supreme Tribunal,
deigned to turn his attention to the circumstances,
which to a certain extent might warrant the miti-
gation of the sentence, and has in consequence
ordered what follows :—The judgment shall be read
to the condemned in presence of the troops assembled,
and after all the preliminaries for the execution of the
penalty of death shall have been accomplished, it shall
be announced to them that the Emperor spares their
lives, and that instead of undergoing the penalty of
death, they shall be declared to have forfeited all their
civil rights, and be condemned, according to their dif-
ferent degrees of guilt, to hard labour in the mines,
to hard labour in the fortresses, or to be incorporated
in:different corps of the army, after having under-
gone periods of detention more or less long. Thus
the guilty men who had incurred the penalty of death
according to the law, but whose penalty has been
mitigated by the inexhaustible clemency of the Em-
peror, will he subjected to a just chastisement. May
this guilty attempt serve as a warning and salutary
example to young men, already misled perhaps, but
not yet criminal. Let parents especially pay serious
attention to the moral education of their children, and
endeavour to convince them from their earliest age
that holy faith, love for the Sovereign, devotedness to
the throne, and obedience to the laws and established
authoritie., are the only immoveable bases of the tran-
quillity of states, and of public and private prosperity."