The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1879-05-22
NIHILISTS In BERLIN.

just witnessed the extraordinary spec
tacle of thetrial of three Russian
nihilists. Three Russian students of
medicine of the Jewish persuasion had
taken up their abode at Berlin to pro-
mote the objects of their political friends
at home by such cooperation as could
be rendered from abroad. Their chief
vocation, it appears, was to smuggle
bales of Russian revolutionary literature,
produced at Geneva, Paris and London,
across the Russian frontier. In addition
to this, the primary task intrusted to
them, they printed proclamations to the
Russo Polish Jews in the Hebrew tongue
which is tolerably familiar to their ortho-
dox brethren and took them across the
border ditch on stormy nights; or If the
Cossack sentinels were amenable to rea-
son and bride, in fair weather too. How
ever Objectionable from the Russian
government point of view, these pro-
ceedings would not have brought them
under the cognizance of the German
Judicature; but as they were imprudent
enough to found secret society, hold
clandestine meetings (without ladies' and
indulge in good deal of mysterious COR
respondence, they one morning found
themselves arraigned for belonging to
society unknown and unannounced to the
authorities. At the trial the charge was
fully substantiated. The secret society
clause was, no doubt, applicable to the
prisoners; they belonged to a section of
some international RevolutionarySociety.
They were in regular intercourse, oral
and written, with German, English and
French socialists. In the execution of
their task they had been travelling TO and
fro between Vienna. London, Paris, New
York and Berlin. Last, not least Though
this did not concern the German law,)
the books and pamphlets found in their
possession proved the revolutionary na-
ture to their agitation. To appreciate
the contents of their printed stuff and
nonsense it is necessary to remember the
adherence in which the Russian go7ern-
ment is held by its domestic adyersagies.
The min gled cruelty and corruption
marking the Russian Executive have
ended in producing among its enemies an
extreme contempt and thirst for revenge
whose extent and bitterness cannot be
easily gagged. On their side of the from
tier, among half-educated persons, stu
dents, seminarists and the like, this con
tempt has engenderod a wild longing for
some regime where no one shall be mas
ter, all men shall be equal, and the earth
shall become the abode of universal fe-
LEFTY and bliss. The flying sheets dis
covered in the possession of yesterdays
prisoners We're i'll the worst style of the
extremes 1t there were any novel
feature in them it was that several were
couched in the language of the Old Tes-
lament, and addressed to that most in
nocuous, most commercial, money max
ing and antl-socladstic creature under
the sun-the Polish Jew. BY no imagi-
nable phenomenon could the injecting
power of the Russian revolutionary con.
tagion have been more ehectually de-
monstrated than by its extension to the
Jews. a class more oppressed, more
timld and moro destitute of hope for
liberty did not until lately exist under
the sceptre of the Gar. IF these, too,
began to revolt the treatment which
mother Russia accords to her children
must have become uncomfortable. The
prisoners will probably be invited to leave
Germany, lest their continued presence
should give rise to expostulation on the
part of Russion diplomacy.
y LITTLE STORY said