Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1881-03-19 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

THE LATE EMPEROR. When, early in the morning of March,3, the Czar _Nicholas I of Russia lay .dying.iu ih.  Niuter Palace at St. Petersburg, be called In  1-Ihu,- and there, iirp. resew,: ot Ministers of State and the great officers t.f t. Hawke. said mournfully to his nun stud I UWOO to all matted), end, "You will find the burden heavy," and surely death-bed prophecy never was more literally fulfilled. Alexander 11. is said by some writers to have been born April 17 (Old Style), 1818; others place his birthday a year later. However that may be, he was about thirty-seven years of age when he came in to the heritage of a distracted and unhappy empire, on the verge of the most extraordinary social revolt'. lion of modern times, Japan not excepted. Ile was born in the reign of his uncle, Alexander 1., who, it will be remembered, died a Taganrog  ;011ie' what mysteriously, in the year 1825. - Ale; ander 11., who did his best to fulfil the aspirationF af the old revolutionisM, has fallenji victim ts  their bloodthirsty successors. The first years of his life were passed under the gentle and kindly influences of his mother, daughter of the third Frederick of Prussia, but from the moment ol his father's accession the whole tenour of hit education became altered. Bewas at once sub.. .  jected to the stern discipline of a soldier's life. His little body was encased in a stiff uniform He was kept at drill from early morning until late at night. His childish sports were cut off. All the talk he heard was of the barrack room, the camp, and the battlefield. But in those early years he had no taste for the military life, and emancipated himself from the subjection thus imposed upon him at the earliest possible oppor. tunity. Not that he was without personal courage, or that he lacked some touch of the quality be. coming in a soldier. For when Sebastopol VISE taken by the Allied troops in the autumn of 1655, and General Gortachakoff declared that he would not voluntarily abandon the country where St. Vladimar had received baptism, the Emperor hastened to the seat of war; and there, while like another Marina weeping over the ruins of his stronghold, showed himself freely to the troops and encouraged them to acts of dauntless bravery. At length, after many vicissitudes, Ears fell, and the military vanity of the Russian people having been thus salved over, the Congress of Pori* followed, and peace was proclaimed. To return to the earlier life of the murdered Czar. The moment it became possible for him to do no, he turned his back upon his military instructors and gave up his mind to civil studies and more peaceful and elegant accomplishments, and to the society of the ladies of bin illustrious mother'e court and family. In this dreadful hour it is a gracious duty to remember that he was an affectionate and dutiful son, and of a naturally gentle disposition. Ills emancipation of the serfs led to endless troubles, and, sad to say, could not save him from an awful and terrible fate. On April 21, 1841, Alexander married Willielmina Augusta Sophia Maria, daughter of Louis the second Duke of Hesse, who died on June 3rd last year. In 1843, at the birth of their first child, the Emperot Nicholas, fearful of the possible consequences ol the bitter quarrel between Ins two sons, required Constantine to take the oath of allegiance to Alexander. Subsequently he privately married the Princess Dolgorouka, with whom lie had lone lived on intimate terms, and who survives Alexander IL was a staunch friend of educsition and of culture ; and so far did his tendencies in favour of constitutional liberty carry him that lie instituted the first elective Assembly of the Empire in the year of 1865. He introduced a regillm military conscription somewhat after the French model; and with the armies no raised conquered the Ameer of Bokhara, the Elias of Rliiva, and. more than all, the Sultan of Turkey. In 1867 the Emperor Alexander sold the territory of Russian America to the Government of the United Staten for the sum of one million four hundred thousand pounds. Ilia visits to the Emperors of Germany and Austria and to this country will be fresh in the recollection of the public. Nor must that nem alliance between the Emperor's daughter, Marie Alexandrovna, and the Duke of Edinburgh, which plunges our beloved Royal Family into a mourning more deep and heartfelt than any Court ceremonial can cover, be forgotten in this their hour of supreme misery to the House of Romanoff.