The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1894-11-02
Alexander III.

has been for sone time expected, and, in
spite Of the persistency with which his life
had been threatened by assassins, was due
after all to one Of the most COMMON, though
most dreaded and least ~tractable, Of the
maladies which flesh is heir to. Dying in
his fftieth year, he ruled Russia only about
half as long ms did his father, and his reign
cannot for a moment he compared with that
Of ALEXANDER II. in respect OF historical
Importance. Virtues undoubtedly he had
they were such rs would reflect great credit
on n plain man in u private station
but as regards his public career IL
must he said tina ut the outset
he r]enounced a unique opportunity to re-
generate his country and showed himself to
the last a reactionist in his principles of gov
eminent that even in Asia he made no ter
ritorial acquisitions except some relatively
trivial gains nj the expense of the Tnrco-
mans bordering AfVhanistan and Persia:
and that, il 'e refraiued from disturbing
the peace of Etrone, it was partly because
until quite recently he had no chance of
facing the triple alliance with II prospect Of
success.
To the patriotic Russian the thirteen
years which have elapsed since the assas-
s%ination OF his father by the misguided
Nihilists brought the late Gar to the
throne may well seem a blank, contrasted
with the %eventful twenty-six years which
had preceded them. In Europe ALEXANDER
III. had played the lofty role of arbiter, and
but for him the unity Of Germany would
have been unattainable in Asia he left his
realm far larger than he found It; while at
home he performed the most splendid act Of
beneficence that has ever been linked with the
an autocrat. There are few periods in
Russian history so illustrious rs the reign
which, before it closed, saw the recovery
of all that had been lost by the Criinean
war the right to maintain vessels of war in
the Black Sea, the protectorate OF Eastern
Christians, Bessarabia, and q larger part of
Armenia than NICHOLAS had possessed:
which beheld the White Gar conqueror Of
central Asia. comprising the territories of
Tashkend, Khokand, Khiva, Samarkand.
and Bokhara: which witnessed the cession
to Russia by China of the whole left bank of
the Amur River, besides. on the right bank,
the coast strip Of Manchuria. which includes
the port of Vladivostock which saw. finally.
the capture of SCHAMYL and the pacification
of the Caucasus, together with the sup
preston OF the desperate insurrection of
Poland in 1863. All these exterior tri-
umphs, however, comparable though they
are to those of PETER |. and CATHARINE H.,
dwindle to insignifcance beside the stroke
of the pen with which ALEXANDER II. gave
liberty to twenty million serfs, comforting
on them not only the right to the products
OF their toll, but the ownership of the lands
pertaining to the communes of which they
were inhabitants. Nor was this the only
act of magnanimity that gave to the reign
of the Liberator Car n lustre compared
with which his sons seems like the
rayless midnight of despair. II is
now known that on the day before
his assassination ALEXANDER II. had signed
the charter conceding to his subjects the
parliamentary Government they prayed for,
and that, at the hour he was struck down,
the Government presses were preparing
copies of the document for publication on
the morrow. We have called the Nihilists
misguided, and surely never was hand more
ill prompted than that which on March II,
1881, cast the deadly bomb at ALEXANDER
ii. and stopped the progress Of the Russian
people for, it may be, many generations.
There has seldom been a more memorable
example of the irony of destiny than the fact
that the author of a decree giving self
government to Russia was barbarously done
to death, while the son who tore up that
has died in his armchair or his
bed, 1t is now a matter of history that the
Liberal advisers of ALEXANDER II. pleaded :
the new Gar throughout the night
Of March IL, 1881 besought him to carry
out his father's plans, and implored him ,
to publish the ukase which was already I
nrintaH nninfinU nut that pnthfp, ,,rIl I
so poignantly endear his fathers memory to q
the Russian heart, or condemn his murder I
ers to such undying execration. For an hour
il looked as II the good angel of ALEXANDER !
III. would triumph; he hearkened to the :.
Ounse of the wise, and assented to the pub- +,
LEGATION of the ar-reaching charter on the q
but during the night he yielded TO 4
advisers playing on his natural re- I
sentiment, ordered the destruction of the de-
cree, and entered on the course Of harsh re- 4
action, from which he was never to depart. '
For the man who missed this precious CD y
p%ortunity of clarifying his fathers memory =,
and exalting himself the utmost that can he i
said is that in his private life he set an edi- s
lying example to his subjects-a thing which "
lew autocrats since MARCUS AURELlUs have p
ione-and that, whether voluntarily or C
nvoluntarily, he forbore imposing on II
hem the sufferings of war. II we ex- .
'ept the operations against the nomad =
Turcomans, which ended in the seizure II
# Sarakhs and Merv and in contact a
With Afghanistan at Penjdeh, there was d
,eace in central Asia in the time Of ALEx- Il
Ill and although during the last e'
ew years France has eagerly offered an
and defensive alliance TO which
he could contribute her full share of mill
AIRY power, the late Car, whom experience b
lad taught what warfare means, shrank, is
With a shudder which did him honor, from al
millions of human beings to the "
Iorrors Of a contest which must have en- .
rolled the greater part of Europe, 8
Why IA Price Of Horses Falls. s.