ENGLISH NEWS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 8151, 23 April 1887, Page 5

ENGLISH NEWS.

[Per Eetjtbr’s Agency.J (Per s.s. Surat, at Albany.) LONDON, March 18 Political events of the past week have been completely thrown into the shade by the serious attempt to assassinate the Czar on Sunday last. The news was first learned from a brief cypher despatch, and all sorts of rumours were current until Wednesday, when a full report was received by the mail, all telegrams having been stopped by the authorities at St Petersburg immediately after the attempt. Sunday being the anniversary of the late Czar’s murder, the Czar and Court attended the usual Requiem Mass in the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, where the Russian sovereigns lie buried. About tW(j o’clock the Emperor was expected to pass along the Nevski Prospect, when a general consternation was excited by the police pouncing on several persons whom they had evidently been following, and taking them to the police head-quarters. It appears that the plot was kept absolutely secret the police having no idea of its existence. On Friday, however, the detectives noticed several suspicious persons loitering about the Nevski Prospect, near Antichoff Palace, and followed them to a tea-house, where they carefully deposited three apparently precious packages one a large book, the other a bag, and the other a third parcel. The movements of the people were reported to the authorities, and orders given to keep an eye upon them. On Sunday they were followed from their lodgings across the Neva to the Nevski Prospect, where they were arrested just before the Czar and Czarevitch were about to leave the Palace. The would-be assassins had made every preparation to escape; and if they had not been arrested in time, the Czar and Czarevitch would almost certainly have met a terrible death, for the objects the miscreants were so carefully carrying were dynamite bombs, and the book proved to be a hollow case containing a bottle of dynamite, surrounded by poisoned bullets filled with arsenic. The Czar’s horses were at once stopped, and the party drove by another route to the railway station, whence they left for Gatschina. The prisoners were all young men, five of them being expelled University students. On the night following the attempt a large number of arrests were made in various parts of the capital, including twenty females. The diabolical attempt is believed to have been the work of the extreme Nihilist section, and is regarded as a proof that the Nihilists are again becoming active.