St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-03-18
The Gear Assassinated at Last.

Inc ear Is dead. He was returning
from Il parade Sunday afternoon at
about two o'clock, when bomb was
thrown which exploded under his car
riage, damaging it so that he alighted.
A second bomb burst beneath his feet,
SCATTERING both legs below the knee
and infiicting other terrible injuries,
from which he died in about two hours
in the Winter palace, where he had
been carried. And SO the aSsassins
have succeeded. 1t will he a most cost
y success for the cause of the revolu-
tionists, who, secure in the reform pur-
poses of the ear as they had never
been before, were daring to hope for
the peaceful achievement of cOnstitu-
tiOnal rights. Everything favored
them the car had already taken mi
tiatOry steps toward free debate, and
through his alert and skilled lieuten-
ant MelikOff, had planned the abolition
of one gross abuse after another they
even set the limit of the autOcratic sys-
TEN within the current year. Now
who can tell what shall happen2 They
have used all means of terrorism to
force on their purposes, and as all men
or causes that do so find sooner or later,
the assassin and incendiary were easier
to move than to check. Without ques-
ton the revolutiOnists bitterly regret,
as they have the weightiest reasons to
regret, this devilish crime done in the
streets of st. Petersburg by some fanat-
ic nihilist.
The victim of this murder was per-
haps the most wretched man in Europe.
He had a gentler nature than the RO-
manoffs are wont to have, aud mani
tested the noblest instincts and pur-
poses in government, but he had never
the strength to master the influences
and tendencies he so bravely faced,
and sank back after every effort at
progress, leaving the evils of his realm
the worse for his interference. He was
almost Hamlet on the throne. When
his father was made ear ia 1926, Alex
ander was seven years old. He had IA
hard time of it all his youth with mill
tary tutors and barrack life he never
took kindly to it, and Notwithstanding
the frequent wars in which he has been
engaged, his whole desire has no doubt
been for peace and for the internal de-
elopment of his vast empire. Assum-
ing the throne in the midst of the Cri-
mean war, he brought it to an end as
soon as that was feasible, and immedi-
ately followed the event by reducing
the army to as low limits as seemed
possible, and by schemes for financial
and commercial advantage maturing
meanwhile the great measure of the
emancipation of the serfs, which has
been his great and just distinction
This was proclaimed in 1861, and three
years later the Polish serfs were like
wise freed. Superb as the act was of
making freemen out of 100000 600 of
virtual slaves, its result was far less
than the statement would imply, for
the reform did not 20 far enough, and
the change left the peasants still the
slaves of the mir, and subject to such
oppression as is known by no other
pOpulace in the world. The ear has
carried on wars in Turkistan until
nearly all that region is either under
Russian governors or held as fiefs by
native rulers he sold Russian America
to the United States for $1,000, 900; he
gained for Russia the freedom of the
Black sea denied her after the Crimean
war he fought and conquered Turkey
in the interest of Christianity, as he
proclaimed, and so began a remodeling
of the map of eastern Europe that is
not yet concluded. There is
then nothing to wonder at in the vio-
lence of nihilism. But year 10y year
the infection has been spreading among
the intelligent of all classes, and bet
ter element, with clearer aims, more
wisely defined pusposes, has grown
together into organized revolution.
They have used the weapons of assas-
sination upon governors and chiefs of
police whom no milder warnings reach
ed, and the execution of their secret
sentences has shocked the world, even