Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1891-03-30
ANNAPOLIS, MD, MONDAY EVENING MARCH 80, 1891
rLor OF A BE.urIrUL NIHlLrsE

10 story ttktuorto AoAO Dtnerontlys
No authentic account has yet been
given of the late political trial--or
rather condemnation--of Russian Nj
hilists for high treason; for trial, in the
English sense Of the word, there was
none. l have just had long conver-
sation with one of the dignitaries who
played the part Of judge. jury. and
counsel for the crown during the brief
ceremony which began by accusation.
was continued by voluntary confession,
and ended in condemnation to death.
The ringleader of the conspirators,
and now the chief OF the prisoners, is-
as is frequently the case in Russian poll
tics-a woman; in this instance u woman
of excellent education, of iron will, of
ravishing beauty, and of undaunted
courage; q woman in many respects
superior to the celebrated Sophia Perov-
sky. This person, Sophia Gunsburg
by name, narrated the eventful story of
her checkered life TO her unsympathetic
judges; and narrated it in most calm,
unimpassioned, objective way, which
the most impartial OF historians might
we'll envy. She was Jewess by birth,
she said, and had been brought up in
the pale of settlement. outside of which
Jews are not allowed to wander at
large. Her parents had given her the
best education that was to be had under
the unfavorable public and private con-
ditions in which their lot was cast
Natural aptitude, and the oppression
that stimulates when it does not crush,
effected the rest, and in time Sophia
Gunsburg became a sort of Jewish
Hypatia of the pale. After having
graduated In the ordinary establish
ments of intermediate education, Sophia
left her birthplace, to which she re-
fuses the name of Eatherland, and went
abroad to breathe the bracing air of
freedom. In Geneva her vague incli-
nations and tendencies were gradually
nodded into a perfect system of cruel.
cold blooded revenge, which has scarcely
its parallel in history. 1t was in that
historic town that she meditated and
brooded over the wrongs inflicted by
Russia until at last she hatched plot.
The means she intended to employ in
order to attain it were to the full as
abominable as the end in view. She re.
solved to gather together a select band
of young men. and, dazzling them by
the almost irresistible charms of her
beauty, to administer to each, unknown
to the other, solemn oath binding him
to do her behests, and to assassinate the
emperor ON day and in the manner
fixed by her. She was determined that,
If one failed, another should take his
place, and still another after him, until
at last the foul deed should be done.
The emperor's successor, too, unless he
struck out new line of policy, was to
be stamped out Of existence in the same
ruthless way. Sophia Gunsburg had no
difficulty in attracting a sufficient num-
ber of love sick young Russians who
were smitten by her beauty and grace,
or made enthusiastic by her eloquence.
She sacrificed without hesitation or re-
gret all that q pure woman holds dearest
in life in order TO maintain her hold
over these young Catilines. She was
not, however, wholly q monster, nor
was she exempt from all human weak
nesses. She herself fell in love, eperdu-
ment in love, with an educated young
Russian, whose paramour she became,
whom she never initiated into her polit-
ical plots. so that he continued down to
the moment Of his arrest in complete ig-
norance Of the part she was playing as
regicide. One of the unsuccessful at
tempts on the czar's life, chronicled in
the Daily Telegraph in the early part of
last year, was the work of one of Sophia
Gunsburg's body guards, and had she
not been arrested when she was, the
present year of grace would probably
have been the last Of the reign of Alex
ander Ill
When the prisoner had finished the
impressive discourse containing the
history of her life and crime, which had
been occasionally interrupted by the
questions and rebukes of the presiding
dignitaries, the president asked her
whether she felt no compunction for the
abominable deed she resolved and at
tempted to execute, no remorse for the
cynical way in which she had divested
herself of all feminine modesty. Her
reply was an emphatic negative, which
rang through the hall like the peal of q
musical bell tolling for the death Of q
youthful bride, and was quickly followed
by the solemn singsong of the judge
pronouncing the sentence of ignominious
death. Her companions were con-
demned to various terms Of hard labor
in the mines-a sentence surprising in
severity the most painful kind of death
all except one, her lover, who, because
perfectly ignorant of her criminal plans,
was finally released, after having Lam
guished in solitary confinement for a
length of time sufficient to make him
wish for release into the life Of this
sublunary world, or into the next The
emperor, when informed of the death
sentence, commuted it into imprison-
ment for life. The emperor refused 70
allow Sophia Gunsburg to 60 to the
mines Of Siberia, her henious crime de-
serving punishment far more terrible;
she is therefore to be kept in close soli-
tary confinement for the remainder OF
her life in the dreary fortress OF gloomy
Schlusselburg, ON . bleak island near
Lake Ladoga, where many another
Nihilist has been lashed into madness on
crushed out Of existence in q compare
lively short time. n London Telegraph.
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