The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-11-29


reaction, the rebound againsi
some other phase of human ex
istence equally dark and crue
and hopeless. That is the reason why
the first two ~papers-all that have
been published as yet-are devoted tc
sketches of Russian tyranny designed
to excite a strong sympathetic feeling
in the minds of readers.
The chilli horrors of st. Petersburg
classmates aud Siberian mines, the
knout and the pletna, the gallows at
Moscow, the prosecutions of students,
the Imprisonment of girls and all the
other dismal facts of q semi barbaric
despotism are dwelt upon, in fact are
expressly plead in justification of the
mere existence of the Nihilistic move
ment. In contrast, of course, there
are pictures of devotion and self sacri-
flee on the part of adherents of the
cause; but so far the entire course OF
the papers is directed to work upon
the sympathies rather than the intel
ligence of the public-to create a
strong mental inclination in the Jury,
as it were, before any real evidence is
presented.
Now, so far as Russian tyranny is
concerned, the world is worn out with
hearing of it. The veriest schoolboy
knows the atrocity of its reign, and the
coolest blood of civilized Europe has
boiled in contemplating it. Nobody
dreams of disputing the wrongs of the
Russian peasantry. No people ever
had better justification for revolt
against their oppressors, and if the
torch of open revolution were kindled
in the realm of the Gar, every free
dom-loving man in Christendom would
pray th9t it might flame until the last
link In the chain of Tartar despotism
was broken.
But the suggestion will occur to most
people who look back over the history
of the Nihilistic movement that the
methods which its fanatical leaders
have adopted, if not the very princi-
pies of their creed tend rather to
justify the despotism against which it
was aimed than the despotism
will to extenuate its awful
crimes. The open rebellion of
the rifle and barricade is as different
from the sullen revolt of the dagger
and the dynamite bomb as the firing
of the minute men at Lexington was
from the Haymarket Square mas
sacre.
What he may have to say later on
we cannot, of course, anticipate.
But Leo Hartman seems to mistake
the temper of mankind just as radi-
cally as ne does the principles Of JUS
tice and the springs of human
progress.
The incivilization of his party will,
it seems to us, go far to excuse in the
mind of the world the mobilization
of the methods of the autocracy, and
the devotion which might decorate a
nobler cause will seem no better
than the savage zeal of the
Mahdi's followers. If Hartmann is
a true type of the advanced thought
of Russia, and of the Russian peo-
pies longings for emancipation, then
we are forced to conclude that the
star of liberty has not yet
1.cao v1.zan fEn 1ori01n 80 4An+
land. Glars may perish by the
knife, palaces aud fortresses may be
rent into ruins; but oppression will
rule the land until it's children learn
that freedom is never the offspring
of crime.
THElower part of Montgomery street
is almost constantly haunted by a
smell of such strength and solidity
that it could, perhaps, be photo
graphed in the interests of science.
If anybody should chop a piece of
this odor off the main mass with an
axe, it would make a valuable contri-
button to a museum of bacteriology.
1t comes from leaking sewers; from
openings in the pavement; from a
half-dozen causes, all Of which are
matters for immediate and serious
consideration, because they involve a
great danger. If an epidemic
should appear in this city this
concentration of all the refuse
of the upper districts, rising where
every person who uses the ferries
must fight his way through it, both
going and coming, would be a means
of spreading disease, the value of
which to the physicians Of Jersey
City could hardly be overestimated.
ADJUSTMENTS.
Academy of Music.