Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1873-02-28
5fliscellanp.
Five Hundred COunterfeiters on
Trial at once.


Trial at once.
In the whole history of criminal juris
prudence there has probably never beef
anything equal to the gigantic trial whicl
was concluded at Moscow, in Russia, OIL
the Dist of November, and in which
were arraigned 500 prisoners, upward o
200 of whom were convicted and sen
fenced to cruel penalties. Among thu
accused we're persons in every station il
in life--gray-haired men and youths, and
men and women, among whom were
some highly accomplished and preposs
ing in appearance. All the prisoners
were charged with one of the gravest of
fences in the criminal code of Russia
that of counterfeiting.
The code says: "The person that
counterfeits the coin of the Imperial
government shall suffer DEATH" Not
withstanding this rigorous provision Rus
STA has been flooded for several years
past with we'll executed counterfeits of
the government Treasury notes. The
prompt execution of several who were
caught in passing the spurious currency,
did not check the evil, and for the three
past years it has become so great that
the Minister of Finance was almost in
despair.-Offers of the largest rewards
did not lead to the detection of the gull
ty parties. Changes in the appearance
of the Treasury notes did not do much
good either, for SO vast is the extent of
the Russian Empire that it takes the I'm
perial government six months to COM
mnnicate its DEGREES to the remotest
parts of the country.
At length, in July last, curious acct
dent gave the government the long look
ed for clue, which led to the discovery of
an association of criminals of both sexes,
banded together for the purpose of circu-
lating spurious currency, and which ex-
tended from the bleak and frozen shores
of the White Sea to the Volga and the
Black Sea. In the course of the two
following months three thousand men
and women were arrested, but after a
preliminary examination twenty -fve
hundred of them were discharged and
about five hundred held for trial. Among
the latter were six Frenchmen of St.
Petersburg. who had been caught print
ing the counterfeit notes, and compar-
atively large number Of women. The
prisoners were all conveyed to Moscow,
where they were confined in the vast
vault underneath the Kremlin Palace.
Criminal law in Russia is barbarous at
the best, and the male prisoners were
herded together like so many hogs. They
received the coarsest of fare and straw
was their only couch. The women we're
treated but little better.
On the Goth of October the trial was
opened in the large hall of the Kremlin,
which holds nearly five thousand per-
sons. The proceedings we're protracted
for a month, and the prosecution sue
ceeded in establishing the guilt of nearly
one-third of the accused. Two hundred
and three of them were found guilty,
among whom were about fifty women.
Sentence of death was passed upon
the six French printers, and the other
convicted 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 pierre
ing shrieks AMI bowls; and well they
might, for in the former the sentence
included barbarous fogging and brand
ing on the fore head with a red hot iron
while the women, some of whom were
Of refined descent, shuddered at the idea
OF having to do the most mental work of
life for ten years at the station house. In
their dispair some of the unfortunates
threw themselves upon the ground, and
piercing cries, mingled with the clinking
OF their chains, produced a truly horri-
Bile effect. The excitement and frenzy
of the condemned grew from minute to
minute worse, and the Judge, in order to
restore quietude had to call in the SOL
diers, who with their kantshups beat the
prisoners right and left, and then drag
ged them back to the vault beneath the
Kremlin.
What are these things which, though
they appear twice in every day and twice
in every week, vet they are only seen