Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-02-09

is very often dished up by the sensational
daily press. 1t is bad enough at best, but
it serves worse purpose than most men
have conceived of if it is to be used as a
shield behind which the illustrated fash
journals may skulk while they continue
to assault public decency.
RUSSIAN HORRORS.
According to Prince Krapotkine in the
Nineteenth Century, the horrors of Mill
ism, political persecution and governmental
severity in Russia surpass all previous con.
ceptions of their reality. Certainly the
Prince, despite his own part in sOcialistic
and revolutionary schemes, is a competent
witness, and with due allowance for his
prejudice, may be heard. He tells that
between IS, 900 and $4,000 political pris-
oners are annually sent into Siberia, the
number having risen steadily to those
figures from 1000 per year at the beginning
of the century. Since 1923 no less than
600, 900 Russians have been whipped over
the SHOWS stained with their blood, on the
fearful march of 5000 miles to that in.
hospitable region, where the major part of
them have worn out their lives in bitterest
toll in the mines. The horrors of these
marches, the tasks in the mines, the
prisons and prison pens, the squalor, filth,
disease, cruelty and torture, are beyond
the power of the most pregnant imagina-
tion to depict. The people chosen to I'M
dereo such trials and sutfsrings are of all
classes, from the bOorish clodhopper to the
thrifty peasant, from the toiling mechanic
to the sturdy farmer, from the student TO
the Government official, from toddling
childhood to those bent with age, from the
market woman to the lady of culture and
refinement, from the street vagabond and
the thief to the delicate and modest girl.
Very few of these are given any opportu-
nifty for proper defense. Snstohed from
home or hiding, they are summarily tried,
knouted and banished, and all appeal, petit
ton or opportunity to secure witnesses cut
off. Many of these unfortunates are the
victims of jealous officials, lying informers
for gain, or personal enemies VINO swear
away their liberties and thus accomplish
bitter revenges. a system of government
capable Of such results cannot abide. To
expect its long endurance is to
deny the progress of thought, the
advance of human intelligence, and the
capacity of the human race. Here
ia an organized ruling power claiming Di-
vine right to administer the affairs of a
nation, corrupt, cruel and despising the
demand for human rights, and which must,
perforce, keep in constant armor against
the very people it rules. 1t is surrounded
by enemies, who count in their numbers
some of the brightest intellects of the
country; some of the best blood of the
aristooracy; men and women of a high
order of intelligence the flower of the
young manhood of the nation; the great
mass of the artisans, even hundreds of the
very soldiers and police who are appointed
to guard the sacred person Of the an
nointed head of the Church and state.
These are for most part go devoted
to the cause of human liberty and a repre-
sentative form of government that they
have overleaped the bounds of their legiti-
mate purpose and themselves have become
cruel and merciless. They cast their lives
upon the altar of their party with a per-
feet disregard for results, and devote them
selves to death to accomplish the end in
view with all the nonchalance with which
they light a cigarette or crack a whip.
Their demands have outrun the scheme CT
representative government, and have cul-
minated in methods of terrorism. as bloody
and cruel as the merciless punishments the
Government inficts upon them when they
fall into it's grasp. What must be the
outcome of such a struggle between such
forces 1t must result in the overthrow
of absolute autocracy on the one hand and
the abandonment of the methods and doc
trines of N,hilism on the other. Out of
the ruins of these, after shock which
will convulee the empire to its core, will
arise constitutional forms under modified
personal rule equal to the capacity of a
people, the mass of whom have no true con-
ception of the principles of seli-government,
and who have yet to begin the march upon
which Russia must enter in company with
the progressive nations OF the earth.