The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-03-14
BOLD RUSSIAN.
Story of a Terrible Life Told to the
Jud ges in st. Petersburg by
Sophia Gunsbu-g.

of the con~spirators, ana now n chiei
of the prisoners, is a woman OF excel
lent education, of iron will, OF striking
beauty, and of undaunted courage.
This person. Sophia Guusburg by
name. narrated the eventfuls story o fher
chequered life to her unsympathetIc
Judges. and narrated it in a most calm,
unimpassioned, objective way, which
the most impartial of historians might
well envy. She was a Jewess by birth,
she said, and had been brought up In
the Pale of Settlement. Her parents
had given her the best educatian that
was to be had under the unfavorable
public and private conditions IN
which their lot was east.
Natural aptitude, and the oppres-
sion that stimulates when 1t does not
crush, effected the rest, and in time
Sophia Gunsburg became a sort OF
Jewish Hypatia of the Pale. The re-
ligiousand moral principals, however
instilled into her by her mother and
her early teachers were soon washed
away by the surge of daily life as 1t
rolled on in the narrow channel OF h
Pale, wrecking young hopes and bury
ing legitimate desires. Sophialeit her
birthplace, to which she refuses h
name of Fatherland, and went abroad
to breathe the bracing air of freedom.
In Geneva her vague inclinations
and tendencies were gradually mould
ed into q perfect system OF revenge,
which has scarcely its parallel in his
tory.
Holding the Government responsible
for the innumerable evils that deluge
the country, she determined to slay the
Car. She resolved to gather together
a select band of youngmen, and dazzl-
ing them by the almost irresistible
charms of her beauty. to administer
to each, unknown to the other, a
solemn oath binding him to her be-
hests, and to assassinate tine Emperor
on a day and i'm the manner fixed by
her. She was determined that If n
failed the other should take his place,
and still another after him, till at
last the foul deed should be done.
The Emperor's successor, too, unless
he struck out a new line of policy, was
to be stamped out of existence In the
same ruthless way, and thus Red Ter
ror was to struggle with White, until
the evils complained of were either
abolished or were intensified to such
an extent that the most ~phleglnatic
Russian peasant could no longerendure
them.
Sophia Gunsburg had no difficulty
in attracting a sufficient number OF
young Russians who were slnitten by
her beauty and grace, or made enthu-
siastic by her e%loquence. She sacrificed
without hesitation or regret all that
a pure woman holds dearest in life in
order to maintain her hold over these
young Catalines. She was not, how
ever, wholly a monster; nor was she
exempt from all human weakness.
She herself fell in love, eperdument in
love, with an educated young Russian
whose paramour she became, but
whom she never initiated into her pol
itical plots, so that he continued down
to the moment of his arrest in COM
plete ignorance of the part she vas
playing as regicide.
One of the unsuccessful attempts on
the Cars life was the work of one of
Sophia Gunsburg's body guards.
Sophia Gunsburg is to be kept in
close solitary confinement for the re-
mainder of her life in the dreary for
tress of gloomy Sehlusselburg, on a
bleak island near Lake Ladoga Pau
Mall Gazette.
The Empress of Austria's Palace.
The Empress of Austria's palace at
Corfu is nearly finished. Within an
area of eighty thousand square metres
there is a park, a wood, and a palace
villa. This is built of brick in the
Roman style, according to the plan of
the Neapolitan architect, Rafaele
Charlie, and will be decorated with
paintings after the Pompeiian fashion.
The park is laid out in the Viennese
fashion. Every species of plant to be
found on the island has been sought
out and specimens planted within
the grounds. There are %, 900 rose
plants, and a large number OF
splendid caetuses. For provid-
ing water through the park
five large fountains, with great
marble basins, have been set up, be-
sides several artesian wells. The light
ing is to be by electricity, and lamps
are distributed freely. not only all
over the building, but also through
the park. A high lighthouse, with
electric lamps equal to 1000 candle
power, will fling its light far over the
sea. The grounds slope down to the
sea, and a small harbor has been con
strueted, where the imperial yacht
will be moored. The grounds cost
$500, COO. The estimate for the build
ing, etc., was only $50, 600, but it is be
lieved that this amount has been con
siderably exceeded.
Success.
1t is a great mistake to imagine tina
success without effort will ever make
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