The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-07

From the Philadelphia North American. N DIMLY-LIGHTED apartment-one
 V of those vast sales found in Rus sian residences. Just enough light for men peering into it's relieved gloom to distinguish the direction of an extended arm.
 In the corners, behind barricades impro- vised from the massive furniture. men
 bearded and giant-like, men delicate and
 dainty, men lean and gaunt of feature, peering Into that tragic gloom. Circling, oraftily circling the room, one | man crouches like wild beast. a silver
 bell around his neck ringing from time to time, in spite of his soft tread, the argent
 music he dreads as his death knell. Circling with equal craft moves another
 man. whose eyes are bandaged, whose hand clutches a revolver or a knife. As the bell tinlxles the blindfolded pur- suer wheels. The knife swings toward 1t,
 straight and true of aim. A lunge, a thur, and the man of the silver bell falls dead, a gaping wound in his breast. It is the end of the game of Tiger and Hunter, the latest, most horrible phase of
  l ing over debauched, self-poisoned, en- 1 slaved Russia.
 In all the history of mankind. in the 1 murderous sports of Nero, who could | smother his friends under rose petals, and | the savage English cruelty which could impale on red hot polSers the> hapless | young Princess of the fatal Tower, dis l easesd imagination has never equaled the 1 horrors of self-infiicted anguish devised | and now practiced by hate-riven Russia 1 Mercilessly cleft into two classes. mas | ters and slaves the substance of the l cruelist slavery retained from the hour | when the odium of nominal serfdom was l shed, the Russian people have passed to | the most abandoned stage of human | wretchedness.
 Thus far the world outside has heard
 only of the bitter. grinding miseries of the
 oppressed-of their starvations their tor
 lures. rapines and martyrdoms; their bloody reprisals and appalling revolts.
 But the news that now comes out of St.
 Petersburg regarding the rich and power- 1 full reveals suddenly the inner working, in
 Russia afresh, of the infallible law of | government that the masters shall perish | with their slaves
 l Neurasthenia, that fearful poison of the
 soul. is sickening the very vitals of the 1 ruling classes.
 Their nerves, routed out with the de- l baucheries of unrestrained indulgence, are
 failing to withstand the terrors of the | bombs that carried off such shining marks as von Plehve and the Grand Duke Ser 1 gius, and such typical victims as Ignatieff, | Bobrikoff and Gapon.
 1 The distant, secret machinations of such living menaces as Pierre Krapotlkin, Vera Gigner. Hermann Lapotin and Boirtzev,
 the recent Identification in London of the
 professional traitor Azev, the plots ad ca-
 bals and the eternal. breeding dread of the suspicious breath that waits to Si-
 beria-horror upon horror-have left whole 1 coteries of wealthy Russians mere quiver- ] ing jellyfish of fear longing for death while dreading deaths awful countenance 1 So it has happened that Stevenson's
 grewsome fantasy of "The Suicide Club" penetrating into neurasthenic Russia, be- came first the wade mecum of despair and
 then the inspiration of the most terrible
 gambling games the world has ever be- 1 held.
 It is no longer-so accursed are these
 lost souls of tyranny-the ultra-fashionable
 thing to make the trip to Finland.
 True, scores of the nerve-diseased rich
 still travel to the famous and romantic Imatra Rapids. there to fling themselves l into that roaring hell of waters as so many fascinated creatures have sought l the fatal embrace of our own Niagara. l But that fashion, which seems to regu- late the tragedy of suicide as inaexibly as it stages the comedy of hats and gowns, now decrees that the Russian l cowardice which does not dare live shall assume the heroism of their Japanese conQuerors.
 Twenty of those soul-sick Russians will