Morning journal and courier., 1885-09-14
rhe Decay of NlhIlism.

London Times Vienna Correspondence 4 letter from Geneva to the Political Cor respondence gives some interesting details about the decline of Nf6ilism. The writer says:
 ''The literature of Nihilism, so abundant few years ago in pamphlets, tracts and clandestine newspapers, is now practically reduced to two periodicals of very small i'm portance. The first of these is Le Messager de Ia Volonte, review which appears four times year, and is edited by Tihornirof and Lavrov, and the second is the General Cause, monthly review published at Gene va. For want of more exciting materials the latter has lately been publishing extracts from Count Leon Tolstoi's My Confessions and My Religion works which, though mystical, have nothing of Nihilist tenden- cy in them. From time to time also the re- view has published discursive but very harm less articles by Plehanoff and Aliosof, wri- ters who are more busy in contradicting the
 theories of other Nihilists than in starting any of their own. In it's July issue, how ever. which bears the number 75, the review publishes article which deserves atten- tion, as containing most emphatic repuda- tion of violent methods for the furtheranee of the Nihilist cause. This article says: Truth compels us to own that the fierce struggle between the Russian government and the spirit of national discontent which gave strength to our party, which was. in fact, its raisCn d'etre, has ended in the tri- amph of absolutisn. Sedition has been crushed and the whole liberal party have taken flight, abandoning their positions to the enemy. If still some spirit of opposi- ton exists in Russia it is so limp, so terror ized, so wearied, that the government might extinguish it altogether without difficulty The popular aspirations on which we count ed fickered only for a moment and then died
 out The people who were at first interested
 in us have grown afraid; why should we scruple to add that they hate us now worse than they have ever hated their oppressors?
 X complete darkness has fallen upon Russia,
 darkness like that of night anl fog com
 bined, yet we will not despair. We are
 struggling for the natural rights of man, and
 such a struggle must ultimately end in vic
 tory, as it has done everywhere else. Mean
 while, let us not defle our cause with v1o-
 lence, murder or explosions. Let us fight
 with moral weapons. We have proof enough
 by this time that the revolutionary violence
 perpetrated in Russia has done nothing for
 the emancipation of the people, but has on
 the contrary been profit to the reactionary
 party. Violence, criminal and immoral in
 it's essence, is only justitiable for the attain
 ment of certain ends plainly seen and desired
 by the people. But our Russian people,
 steeped in ignorance, can see nothing ill our
 violence but the act without the motive.
 Why, then, work to create only terror among
 those we wished to servea What gain has
 1t been to us to see the flower of our youth
 massacred and execrated at the same tine?'"
 The writer to the Correspondence, describ-
 ing the above article as important mani
 festo, adds: ''At the time when President
 Garfield was assassinated the General Cause
 blamed the murder, saying it approved of
 such deeds only in Russia. Its new utter ance, therefore, becomes the more signifi- cant n