The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-10-21
BELL EXILED
 300 YEARS
FIRST CALLED DEvOUT RUSSIANS
 20 THEIR PRAYERS.
Sounded K nell OS slaughter by the Cruel Apistocrats-Punishe by Hav. ing its Tongue Removed
 and Ear Cut on.

 into Siberian exile and was further punished by having its tongue torn out and one of its ears cut on has just been revived in Russia along with tragedy as terrible as ever happened in the "empre of thousand years since Rurik, It's founder. first landed with his followers on the Baltic coast.
 Ii was toward the close of the six- teenth century. soon after Walter Ra- leigh had founded Virginia. that this historic tintin- nabulator first called the people to prayers in the town or Ugllcn on the Volga. Russia was then pain fully emerging from the Mongol do- imitation and had already begun to ap- ply at home the lessons of despotism which she had learned from her Ori- ental invaders. Originally a cluster of autonomous republics. the country had gradually been converted into an em- pire and governed on autocratic prin- ciples Everywhere the rule of the grand princes had gone down before the growing power of the Czar.
 What did the old bell see as 1t gazed out in these troublous times from the quaint belfry in the town of Uglich? It saw czardom gather deadly strength behind the towers and cupOlas Of Mos COW and looked on as the enemy With in dyed the battlements of the holy city with the blood of instruction. It rang out salutes to rulers who did not scruple to reach their ends by means of poison, the garrotte, the slow fire flesh pincers and the "bonebraker'- who thought a victory in war ineffect- i've unless the prisoners taken could be sent mutilated into captivity IL survived the spectacle of blind man enthroned over all the Russians. and when an earthquake ushered into life the lunat:c who was afterward to
 Txrnn the old bell loyalty joined all the other bells in a peal that was Slovenian 1T not exactly musical.
 Killed His Own Children.
 But it's own turn was coming The fury of Ivan the Terrible, who pun ished traitors with the aid Of his "orrIchniki'-the "blacx hundreds" of ragged itself out. Three sons should have survived him, but the madman with a method had simpnfied the ques- tion of succession by staying his eld- est born. Of the remaining two, the feeble minded 'eodor was chosen Czar by the boyars, with Boris Godunoh as regent.
 From this sinister combination the most terrible results soon flowed, for Godunoff. with the ambition of an Ar baces, was not only the real ruler or Russia but himseif an interruptions aspirant to the throne. The opposition of the boyars, the hatred Of the people would alone have snficed to put him on his guard. Knowing that he could never be eafe while single rival re- mained. he banished the remaining members of once powerful family. sending into exile not only the widow of Ivan. Marie Nabaya. but also her youngest son, boy of tender years. whose memory Russia has never ceased to honor as the CzareVich Dml- try
 The place chosen for their obscurity was the town of Uglich. and it was here. within sound Of the old peii' that both lost their lives by assassination. The first to be struck down was the young czarevich. He had returned one morning from church with his mother. After changing his clothes the boy asked to be let out to play. and as he went forth into the courtyard she gave him some nuts in handkerchier'
 The poor woman never saw him alive again A few minutes later his desc hodv was brought in to her Some hired assassin had cut the lads throat Though dead. he still held the hand kerchief she had given him with the nuts.
 S.unded KneH for Slaughter. And now there was another use fonnu for the I'glich bell than that Of mereiy welcoming new. tyrants into the world or of summoning folkmotes In which inc citizans announced their will and flung down the gauntlet of the popu- lar resistance Far and wide It's mes sage sounded and round about 1t the people gathered In their wrath.
 If few moments sufficed for d"- liberation not more than day was needed for the slaughter that followed 0rNt. .N 1o fny, hat ivglich maintained not man was spared who could bv any possibility he suspected of complicity In the assas- nation.
 News of the massacre soon reached Moscow and reused Boris Godunoff to action Regarded by everybody as the instieator of the assassination. he which had been pronounced against him by the unjurdicGl Uglish mob. His vengeance was deliberate and mercl- less Besides exterminating the Ma gaya family. he uprottcd Vglish root and branch. Some 200 of its inhahi tants were executed and 3o.ooO sent into siberian exile: the rest had their nostrils mutilated and their tongues torn out as a preparation for lifelong in the jalls of mediaeval Russia.
 Nor did the bell of Uglich escape pay ing the price of it's part m the popular uprising Lowered from the belfry, it received twelve blows from the loaded whip of the executioner. The cross was then solemnlv removed from II the tongue was taken out and one Of it's ears cut off. Thus degraded. the bell was exiled to Tobolsk a town in Western Siberia at the confluence of the Irtlsh and the Tobol Rivers 2,OeO miles east of St. Petersburg
 Bell Hidden in Exile.
 For centuries thereafter this dis tinguished exile seems to have been lost to the world. Feodor died and Godunoff resigned after him and many other czars succeeded one after an other to the Russian throne. But the bell never figured more in history until 1890. when the citizens of To bolsk, taking 1t into their heads that it had been sufficiently punished-its exile mad lasted from 159S-obtained a full pardon and a reconsecrecration for it from the holy synod of the Rus so-Greek church, and had the satisfac- ton, Sunday after Sunday for months Of regularly responding to its call to prayers.
 on news of their bells rehabilita- ton reaching the citizens of tglich' a patroitic movement was lmmediate-
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