The daily gazette. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1874-1883, 1881-04-21
THE REIGN OF TERROR In
RUSSIA.

Recent reports from Russia ap.
pear to indicate that the execution
of the nihilists convicted of compile
city in the assassination of the Gar
instead of overawing their secret as.
seciates, has reused them to still
more determined action. 1t was
the necessity of his position that the
new Gar could not show mercy to
the conspirators who had succeeded
in comprising the death Of his faith
er. But In sending them to the fate
they had courted and defed, it is
clear that he has put his own life in
jeopardy. 1t is doubtful whether
anything short of granting consti
tutional form of government will
give him respite from the muir derous
assaults of those who work against
him in the dark, who have doomed
him to death, and, if the reports
from st. Petersburg be true, have
shown that they were able to lodge
their death dealing devices even
within the precincts Of the funeral
chamber Of the late Gar. All the
accounts that reach us indicate that
there is veritable reign of terror in
st. Petersburg; that even 10 bis pal
ace, surrounded by his guards, the
Gar is not secure from the machine
tlons of the my sterious society whose
organization is 30 perfectly broken
up into separate and distinct circles
OF operation that the arrest of part
of the members Of one circle gives
but the faintest clue to their imme-
date associates, and no clue what
ever to the members of the other
circles.
The number of Russians seized by
the police of the third section on
the charge OF being engaged in nihi.,
llstlc plots, tried by military court,
and either executed or exiled to 81.
IBERIA, condemned TO perpetual sur
veillance there, ca to hard labor In
mines, from which they are never
allowed to emerge, may be counted
by thousands. Yet the active work
ing force of the nihilists seems not
only to know no abatement, but TO
increase in intensity of action, in
spite of the loss of associates and
the efforts made by the government
to discover and suppress them
Their field of operations extends
from the Baltic to the Black Sea-
They have their circles in all the
great towns IN European Russia. :
The association comprises men in
all stations of life, from govern
ment officials to professors and stu
dents of universities, civil engi-
neers, discontinued landowners, Wo-
men of high and low rank, and men
engaged in handicrafts. Only the
peasantry apper to be free from the
faint of nihilism.
1t is claimed by its Jealous advocates
to be the intellect of young Russia that is
engaged in a struggle against absolutism
typified in czarisnl, and willing to wade
through blood to accomplish its ends, re.
gardless of what my.follow. Call them
what one will-anarchists, socialists, or
blind, unreasoning fanatics, without any
other object in view than the destruction
Of czarism-it must nevertheless be &C
know lodged that they have made them.
selves a power whose orders are carried
out implicitly by the agents selected by
the chiefs OF the society for the work in
hand, however horrible the thing may be
they are appointed to do. Nothing is
more remarkable in the history of this
terrible contest than the steadfastness
with which the DEGREES of of the associa-
ion have been persisted in. From the
moment it passed sentence of condemna-
ion against the late Gar it has pursued
him relentlessly. Wherever he went he
Iound something to notify him of the
presence of nlhilists.
Letters Of warning and denunciation
reached him III the recesses OF his palace
Al st. Petersburg, at Moscow, and even
N his remote summer retreat at Livadia.
Every failure of one attempt upon his
life was followed by another. In his
on the public street or travel
ing on railroads, he was never secure.
Arrests, imprisonment, hanging, exile, did
not stop the fulfillment of the decree;
and il was finally fulfilled, how horribly
every one knows. The life the late
Gar led recent years must have been
me of perpetual torture. He knew that
he was doomed. He did not know at
what hour he was destined to fall by the
lssassIn's hand. Is the new Gar, devot-
ID already by the Dihllists TO the same
late, TO be more fortunate in battling
hem?