REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 13 April 1908, Page 6

REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA.

Under the title of, "The Bed Reiga: The True Story of an Adventurous Year' in Russia." (Hodder and Stougfcton), Mr Kellogg Durland, an American journalist, describes a tour through Russia in '1906, the revolutionary year that followed the conclusion of peace with Japan. On crossing the frontier from Germany, the writer met with a little incident which showed how, unless he was very careful, he might get into serious trouble. At the Wirballen station he gave a modest tip to one of the porters to accelerate the passing of his luggage, and at the same time noticed that a Russian standing next to him dn>ppe<l a gold coin into the man's hand. "The man started in visible surprise, an* excitedly snapped and shut my bags without so much as glancing at them. The Russian, with whom he had talked during the railway journey, whispered to him, "Take two of my bags along with yours." Unsuspectingly the traveller did so, and when the train had left the station and the Russian came to claim the luggage was told that the bags contained hand-grenade models, phials of high explosives, and several Browning revolvers. This was his first service to the Russian revolution, but later on he became involved in the doings of the revolutionists, and had some exciting adventures and narrow escapes from death or capture under circumstances in which nothing • could have saved him. He and his companion were arrested when travelling to Saratoff for having photographed a priest and having paid too much to a poor woman for a meal, and put in prison, where, they were told, they would have to remain until the arrival of the priestoff (an official), which might be in a day, a week, or a month. Mr Durland had recently heard of a German subject who had been arested in that province and all trace of him lost. The German Government pressed its enquiries without avail. » The man had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed him up. At last, after two years, he was found in a prison, in which he had been locked up and forgotten. The thought was not reassuring to the Americans. They might lie there until they rotted, without discovering any means of escape or. res- ! cue. "It is this absolute uncertainty of the outcome," says Mr Durland, "that makes arrest in Russia so distinctly unpleasant." Fortunately they were released in a few days, but without any apology or explanation. They were congratulated on not having been flogged by some of the gendarmes, a fate that often befalls prisoners. Mr Durland gives a terrible picture of Russia during the revolutionary year. His pages teem with horrors — innocent people shot down or flogged out of the semblance of humanity; others left to rot in dungeons; women and children violated by brutal Cossacks and gendarmes. In fact, this was the almost certain fate any woman who fell into theOiands of these scoundrels. The great majority of the victims were innocent of any offence. Here is an instance of the doings of Russian troops in the Baltic provinces, under the military rule of General Orloff, known as "the butcher" .—"When they (the dragoons) did not find Mr Michelson they tortured his wife. The latter took her haby in her arms and declared that sh© was prepared to die, but the dragoons left her alone and came the. next day to torture her again for hours. However, they could not force the unfortunate victim to tell them where her husband had hidden himself." Mr Durlatid visited Marie Spiradonova in prison at Tamboff, being, he says, the ouly man, except, officials, who ever . saw or talked with her. Her dreadful - story was told by Mr Foster Fraser in "Red Russia." At the time Mr Dur-

land visited her she was the most- - talked-of person in Russia, and perhaps the most notable prisoner in the world. Her crime was that she shot the Lieutenant-Governor of Tamboff, Luchenowsky, one v of the most brutal administrators in Russia. She murdered him for his connivance at an act of unspeakable atrocity to a peasant girl by Cossacks. Marie was treated in an infamous manner, being stripped, beaten, and outraged by the chief of police and a Cossack officer. All this was ,done before she had been brought to trial and convicted. She Mas condemned to death by a military court, but the sentence caused such an outcry that it .was commuted to i 20 years' - imprisonment, with hard labor. She is now at work in the mines in Central Siberia. The two miscreants who ill-used her* were murdered a few weeks later. Mr Durland describes Marie as a delicate girl, with soft blue eyes that deepened to niolet as tne pink in her clear cheeks deepened •to a hectic red as she talked. Her wavy brown hair was parted in the middle and draped over her temples to hide hideous scars left by the kicks of the Cossacks. Her costume was a simple blue prison dress. When the visitor bade her good-bye she said, "Monsieur, take my greetings to France, to England, and to America." The author publishes a letter describing her treatment by the Russian officers. It is probably, a unique document. Afterwards' He called on Marie's mother, who told him that two of her daughters were dentists, and that Marie's ambition had been to be a doctory, but she gave up everything to serve the movement that was making for freedom. - When asked how she felt to have three daughters in prison on public charges the old lady replied, ''It makes me the proudest mother in all Russia." An interesting section of the book relates the author's visit to the Cossacks of the Caucasus. He says that after the Russo-Japanese war the Cossack will never again be relied on in regular warfare. His devil-Kay-care methods are no longer effective against a regular army. The Cossack is not scientific, and therein he fails. ~> His hour has struck, and another generation will know him not. . While in the Caucasus Mr Durland had an interview with General Alikaahoff, whose ruthless methods of pacification gained for him the title of "Bloody Alikanhoff." He was a scoundrel of the deepest dye, and was three times reduced to the' rnnks for his excesses, and on one of these occasions because of his corruption. In July last year, when driv- ( ing out with a lady, he was blown to

pieces by a bomb. "The Red fteign" is altogether a thrilling description of the state of affairs in Russian during an eventful year.