THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Evening Star, Issue 12769, 23 March 1906, Page 6

THE RUSSIAN REVOLT.

Press Association—By Telegraph— Copyright* the autocracy supreme. TROUBLE IN ODESSA. ST. PETERSBURG, March 22. The editor of the ‘Novosti’ has been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for offences against-the Press., laws, and the newspaper been permanently suppressed. A strike has occurred among the pupils of the high schools at Odessa. As a protest against the execution of Lieutenant Schmidt, the leader of the Sebastopol mutiny, 2,000 sailors at Sebastopol hoisted. the black flag in token of mourning. The Port Admiral ordered the bombardment of the vessels on which this was done, but countermanded His order on re*ceipt of instructions from St. Petersburg. ./ ' A WHY SCHMIDT WAS SHOT. ST. PETERSBURG, March 22. • (Received March 23, at 9.2 a.m.) It is reported that Lieutenant Schmidt was shot because no hangman could he found willing to execute him. THE MAIL ROBBED. ST. PETERSBURG, March 22. A number of men disguised as policemen robbed the mail on the road to Samara, and secured £3,800. THE WAY OP THE AUTOCRAT. The special correspondent of the ‘Glasgow Herald,’ wiring from Riga on February 2. says: —As I came down through the fir forests and frozen heaths of this Baltic province at sunrise last Monday morning, twenty-five men were being shot in cold blood among the sandhills beside the railway. They were tied together in a row, and fell together, gasping out their lives ride by side, and so were heaped into a trench already prepared for them. When 1 reached this town I was told 100 more were ready for lolling, and would probably be slaughtered next morning. It was a fitting entrance into these once peaceful and civilised provinces, where now a bloody assize is raging. Every daily paper, over its little German love-story or bit of art criticism, has a column of executions. The whole local news of the three big provinces now consists of shootings, hangings, and floggings. From village after village the same news comes. Let me take but three instances at random from a column of today’s reports: Tarwast.—The whole population of the village over the age of fifteen was brought before the court-martial to-day. Six were shot on the spot, including one woman ; nine were flogged with strokes varying from 25 to 200. I need not say that 200 strokes delivered by soldiers on the naked bodies of either women or men would mean almost certain death in its more terrible form. Snnzel.—Yesterday six revolutionaries were shot, and four the day before. In the neighbouring parish of Lemberg twenty-four were flogged. Wolmar-—This morning early two youths, one only fifteen, evidently much excited, ran up to a patrol of soldiers and tried to get hold of one of the rifles, saying they would show them how to shoot. They were captured, and General Old! ordered their immediate execution. They received the Sacrament, and were shot in the presence of a large number of spectutors. The execution appears to have exercised a quieting impression npon the whole population of Wolmar. Village after- village has that quieting impression exercised upon it. For the lastweek, to my knowledge, and I beHeve for a full fortnight before, the papers have told the same monotonous story of cold-hearted bloodshed. Even the German landowners, who have taken refuge in the town till their peasants are reduced to order, complain of the dreariness. “ I’m off to see that dancer again,” said one of them to me, after finishing the news. “She hasn’t good, really good, legs, but in these times we mnst take what amusement we can.” “ One of the peasants 'themselves told me to-day,” said the daughter of another landowner, “that a third of them ought to be shot. I was so pleased to hear him say so.”