The San Francisco call., 1897-06-20

adherence or even disapproval OF crimes
OF V o,ence committed what may be de-
scribeG as under a cloak of politics. For
the London Times, that newspaper which
may be regarded as the very personih-
cation of British respectability and pro-
priety, did not hesitate to include among
the most valued and honored member of
its staff a man who under the literary
pseudonym of "SIepniak" disguised, but
did not attempt to conceal, his real
name of Kazcheffsky. which figures in the
criminal annals Of Russia as that of the
murderer of the chief of the ST. Petersburg
police. General MezenIzef. The latter
was killed in the most cowardly manner
by couple of stabs in the back on the
part of "Stepniak,' who was afterward
included by Edmund Yates among his
Celebrities at Home" in the London
World, and finally came TO violent and
on the whole well-merited end through
being ground to pieces by locomotive
while walking along the tracks OF a rait-
road in the outskirts of London.
Another equally celebrated member of
the staff of the Times. and who was for
many years the special correspondent of
that journal in the United States, was the
his own admission, travelled ali the way
from Parma to Turin as a young man for
the express purpose Of assassinating King
Charles Albert of Sardinia, a crime for
which he was sentenced 10 death, only
escaping that fate by flight to Boston.
Yet the fact OF his having been implicated
in this conspiracy ana OF having plotted
a murder, the execution of which was
Sandman police, did not prevent Mr.. Gal
lenga from becoming one of the so-called
ambassadors" of the London Times, nor
from even attaining subsequently, high
political honors in his native country.
Such things as these are calculated to
warp the minds and the principles of
those who, educated beyond the station
in life which they can reasonably expect
10 attain, are already disposed to regard
their surroundings with mind that can
only be described as distorted. 1t is ex-
ceedingly difficult for people of this char
acter, who are frequently styled the ''step-
children of society,"" to define the exact
line that separates a crime from politi-
cal offense.
They cannot but appreciate the fact the
felons of to-day are often the martyrs and
the heroes of tomorrow, and when they
see the treatment accorded by posterity to
Orsini, who il an attempt to assassinate
Napoleon III with a bomb killed aud
wounded twenty-five people at Paris, and
Oberdank who sought to murder the En-
peror of Austria, both of whom are now
extolled throughout Italy as patriots who
sacrificed their lives for their country's
good, it is difficult to prevent their run
ming away with the firm conviction that
in the event of their killing some sovereign
of the present time they will, notwith-
standing the execration which such an
act would at first call forth, pc eventu-
ally raised by their fellow countrymen
and by society to Just as high pinnacle
of popularity and regard as any of the
men above mentioned It must not be
forgotten that every political revolution
of the past has been precedei by acts of
conspiracy and often of violence on the
part of individuals who occupied toward
the Governments of their day much the
same position as that in which the an-
archists the socialists, the Irish InYinci-
bles, the Russian nihilists, etc., now stand,
and regicides are to certain extent war
ranted and encouraged by the past 10
believe that the legalization and iustih-
cation of their crime is almost always
but question of time. Indeed, the very
condition of international intercourse
tends 10 blunt the moral sense of the
regicide and of the political assassin with
regard to the infamy of his crime. For,
as we have seen above, England sheltered
the murderer Stepniak from the Gear and
declined to surrender TO France the fellow
conspirators of Orsini or the ground that
their crimes had been OF political char
acter and dictated by patriotism rather
than by wlckedness. In the same way,
France, in spite of her anxiety to please
Russia, turned deaf ear to the demand
of the Gear for the arrest and surrender of
Hartman and those other nihilists who
were concerned in the attempt to blow to
pieces the imperial train near Moscow,
the nspiraiors destroying the wrong
train, killing the majority of its occu-
pants. Irishmen indicted by the English
courts for dynamite outrages may always
rely upon protection from the English
police provided only they can reach
France; and although Austria and Italy
are bound together in close union by
the terms of the triple alliance, Oberdank
would never have been obliged to expiate
aged to attain the Italian frontier.
Paris haTbored until the day of his
death the late Prince Karageorgivitch,
who stood convicted by the tribunals of
Hungary, in which country he was resi-
dent at the time of the shocking assassin
alton of the late Prince Michael of Servia,
OF having been the principal instigator of
that CRIME, and a warrant being actually
issued for his arrest. Yet owing to the
fact of the murder having been of The
regicide order no attempt was ever made
to interfere with Prince Karageorgivitch
in France. 1t is almost certain that were
any one to murder the Sultan, Prince
Ferdinand OF Bulgaria, King Alexander
of Servia. or let US even say King Hum
bert or Emperor William, and then es-
cape TO either France or England, it is ex-
ceedingIy doubtful whether the Govern
ments Of either Of these two countries
would be willing to surrender the assas-
sin; and in the event any Irish inVinci-
bic or Indian fanatic, maddened by the
sense of the wrongs inflicted upon his
people by their English oppressors,
made some attempt upon the life of the
enerable Queen Victoria, his extraditlon
by any foreign country to which he might
flee would be contrary to usage in the
past, and entirely tribute to the uni
yersal respect and admiration which her