The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-08-03
lcRET PRESS IN RUSSIA
len and Women Striving for
Freedom of Speech
LAND AND LIBERTY "
+ lot Secretly Conducted Press in
the World--Workers are in Fact
Pyisoners-Mystery and Inviolate
Secrecy Govern the Whole Work.
hg of the Affair.

0R OF t0e AUalT.
II Is now eight and twenty years
noe Jewish conspirator Aaron
undelevic by name, native OF
Tilna in Lithuania, came forward
nd assured the organization to
thteh he belonged that II they
,ould find the means he would find
70 press, and would, moreover, set
mp in st. Petersburg. A sum OF
.oney was provided. and from
broad Aaron smuggled into st. Pet
tsburg all the necessary plant. Then
Q set to work to learn the compost
,r's art Gust as, In the first days OF
70 Propaganda, young mobiles taught
themselves a trade In order to go
own among the peopleD, and in
SIT the first free" printing Office
y:rthy OF the name was established
the heart and center of spydom.
This clandestine press Is clandes-
No In everything. 1t is the most Sc
reilly conducted press in the world.
here Is no editorial office, with an
iftor in snug inner chamber, re-
siving the visits OF contributors, dis
assing the articles for the next is
40. A mystery and inviolate Sc
= eecy govern the whole working OF
10 affair. The editor himself may,
may not, know the persons who
70 responsible for the mechanical
reduction of the paper; he seldom,
{ ever, knows the place at which It Is
reduced. A confidential messen-
ar comes to a given spot on a given
az to receive manuscripts from the
'dftor's hand; he comes again to de-
,ver the proofs, and the rendezvous
) never twice the same. The con-
ributors are known probably to
lone except the editor. In a word,
recautions, the most minute and ex-
raordinary, must be observed il the
ecret press is successfully to battle
he everlasting efforts of the police
unmask it.
Stepniak tells us that during the
line he was one Of the editors Of
and and Liberty he was taken once,
md once only, to the printing office.
N important piece Of news had to
ie inserted in the number that was
bout to be issued, and he made his
ray to the Office In one of the CEN
raj streets Of the city. The Chief
Il Police had declared that this Office
ould not possibly be in St. Peters,
,urg, because otherwise he would
lfallibly have discovered It," Step
lax found the people of the Office,
nd the women who helped them
md managed for them, living in al
.lost absolute durance.
In five rooms, including a little
gitchen, four conspirators were in
tailed; two men and two women.
1aria Kriloff, who passed as mis-
.ress of the house, a woman of about
s, had devoted her life to the
cause; she had been transported
% Siberia and had escaped.
These four brought out the Narod-
,aiR VOLTA, which the head of the po-
Ice declared could not be produced
st. Petersburg.
The dvornik had to be hoodwinked
rom day to day.
Maria Kriloff went upon the bold
,lsn of sending for him at any and
very hour. and conducting him
trough all the Ave rooms, under the
lretense Of hunting for a trouble
ONE rat. They learned in this way
low to dispose Of the plant at from
i've to ten minutes notice. At night,
,ehind a double curtain Of canvas,
.saled across the window, the type
vas set. In the strangling monotony
II this existence, the workers tasted
only one excitement, but that was
laily and an hourly one, the likeli-
lood Of discovery and arrest. So
cry present was this danger that it
passed into joke, and the ladies
lsed to speculate at their meager
avening meal whether they would be
aanged or transported to Siberia.
The expected happened at last at
he Office of the Narodnaia VOLTA.
)ne night the police came down on it.
What they had reckoned on as easy
seizure transformed itself into a four
hours siege and battle. Maria Kril-
OF drew on the gendarmes with her
revolver, and to a challenge of this
sort the response Is always prompt
and merciless in st. Petersburg. The
ofice was riddled with bullets, but
for four hours the conspirators kept
their stand. The survivor was
THE Bird" who blew his brains out
when the game was up. He has
transmitted no name to posterity; he
is among the Russian terrorists who
have elected to be nothing but a
memory. But while there are such to
choose from the clandestine press Is
lnvincible.-St. Louis Republic.
Richest of the Aborigines.
Though the American Indian ia