The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1873-01-16

As he went out in the dusk, he met
Hannah in the lane.
To be continued
The Greatest Criminal Trial on
| Record.
In the whole history of criminal
Jurisprudence there has never proba-
bly, been anything equsl to the gigan-
tic trial which was concluded ut
Moscow, in Russia, on the olst of
November, and In which were ar
raigned 500 prisoners, upwards of 200
of whom were convicted an 4 sen fenced
to cruel penalties. Among the accused
were persons Of every station in life
gray-haired men and youth. men and
women among the latter some highly
accomplished and prepossessing in
appearance. All the prisoners were
charged with one of the gravest Of
fenses in the criminal code of Russia
that of counterfeiting. That code
says: "The person that counterfeits
the coin or currency of the Imperial
Government shall suffer death" Not
withstanding this rigorous provision,
Russia has been flooded for many
years past with we'll executed coun-
terfeits of the government treasury
notes. The prompt execution Of sew
eral who were caught in passing the
spurious currency did not check the
e,H, ano fUr the iass sa.seo years II be-
came 90 great that the Minister of
Finance was almost In despair. Offers
OF the largest rewards did not lead to
the detection of the guilty parties.
Changes in the appearance of the
treasury notes did not do much good
either, for DO vast is the extent of the
Russian empire that 1t takes the i'm
perial government six months to
communicate its DEGREES to the re.
motest parts of the country.
At length. in last July a curious
accident gave the government the
long looked.for clue, which led to the
discovery of an association of criminals
OF both sexes, banded together for the
purpose Of circulating the spurious
currency, and which extended from
the bleak and frozen shores OF the
White sea to the Volgs md the Black
sea. In the course OF the two follow.
ing months, 5000 men and women
were arrested but after q preliminary
$500 of them were dis
charged, aud about 500 were held for
trial. Among the latter were six
Frenchmen, Of st. Petersburg. who
had been caught printing the counter.
felt notes, aud q comparatively large
number of women. The prisoners
were all conveyed to Moscow, where
they were confined In the vast vault |
the Kremlin Palace.
Criminal law in Russia is barbarous at |
best, and the male prisoners were
herded together like SD many hogs.
They received the coarsest Of fare, and
straw was their only couch. The wo-
men were treated but little better.
On the Goth of October the trial was
opened in the large hall of the Krem-
lin, which holds nearly 5000 persons
The proceedings were protracted for
and the prosecution succeeded
in establishing tho guilt of over one
third Of the accused. Two hundred
and three of them were found guilty,
among them about fifty women. SEN
tence of death was passed upon the
xix French printers, and the other
parties were condemned to
hard labor in the gold mines of the
Ural Mountains for life, or for ten
years. The doomed men and women
burst into piercing shrieks and howls;
md well they might, for in the case Of
he former, the sentence inclnded bar
,arous flogging and brshding on the
orehead with red-hot iron; while the
women, some Of whom we're Of refined
descent, shuddered at the idea of hav-
ny to do the most menial work for
ife or ten years At the station houses,
where the keepers of the male prison.
- reside. In their despair some of
he unfortunates threw themselves
lpon the ground, and their piercing
ries, mingled with the clanking Of
heir chaius, produced truly horrible
fleet. The excitement aud frenzy of
he condemned grew from minute to
minute more intense, and the Judges,
n order to restore quietude, had to
all in the soldiers, who, with their
beat the prisoners right
md left, and then dragged them back
o the vaults of the Kremlin.
Mr.. Beecher, or somebody like him,
answers correspondent who wants to
Inow IL 1t is wicked to read fiction. by
aging "that depends" He never
Knew an y body to be morally or in
ellectually injured by the parallels Of
Christ, "PiIgrim's Progress, para
lise Lost" Adam Bede," "John
or Robert Falconer." But
t is great waste Of time, and fire.
luently an injury to morals, to read
lime novels, the lower order Of Sum-
lay school books, fulsome religious
and the campaign lives Of
,ubliC men. This truth Of Mr.. Beech
RS will be stranger than fiction to
Ome men.