GREAT PLOT IN ST. PETERSBURG.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 100, 29 April 1908, Page 2

GREAT PLOT IN ST. PETERSBURG.

EXCITING ACCOUNTS

ST. PETERSBURG, Feb. 21. A nefarious plot, just discovered, against the lives of the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch; M. Stolypin, the Minister of Justice; and other prominent personages, proclaims that the lull in the Terrorist campaign is, as anticipated, merely the calm before a terrific storm. The Anarchistic propaganda is active and successful. The army, the navy, the railway, the telegraph, and the postal services are all honeycombed with the Terroristic virus. The very police is infected and untrustworthy and even were it above suspicion, it is too badly organised to be efficient.

Over sixty persons were captured yesterday who unhesitatingly exposed their, own lives in order to take those of tne Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch and other noteworthy State dignitaries. A clue was obtained from the documents siezed in Finland when the gendarmery^ officer Bogdanoff was arrested a few days ago for being the accomplice of the Terrorists, and detectives shadowed the criminals named.

On Wednesday three would-be assassins not mentioned in the documents took up a position outside the Ministry of Justice, in the very centre of the city of St. Petersburg, and awaited the Minister of Justice. Had the Minister come out while they were there he would have been almost certainly slain. Happily, however, he did not appear. Then they withdrew, but returned yesterday. The police noticed, watched, and arrested them. A house adjoining the Grand Duke's palace, in the very centre of the city, near the Vevsky Prospekt, was also haunted by the Terrorists, despite the viligant watch observed by the police. Yesterday, at two o'clock, a prettilydressed woman came out of the house with a young man, and walked towards the Hotel de 'lEurope; but the secret police agents noticed and followed them. The lady, descrying the detectives, fled, and, being pursued," fired several shots from a revolver at her pursuers, but without effect. Lawabiding citizens, male and female, who were in greater danger than the police, dodged the bullets, and scampered off. Then the lady turned the revolver against herself, but again

proved a bad shot. Just then the police knocked her down, snatched the revolver from her hand, lifted her into a sleigh, and drove her to the police station. When the horse started, the lively prisoner shouted, '' Good-bye ior a time."

At the station the lady's muff was found to contain twelve pounds of dynamite. Her male companion, who had attempted to trip up the police before they had overtaken her, was also captured and searched. His body was girdled with a belt containing an infernal machine charged with five pounds of dynamite. The other individuals who were with tne pair managed to escape. The vast house from which they had emerged was then searched, because it adjoins the Grand Duke's palace, and the examination lasted all night, ending in the arrest of two women and three* men.

Women are now playing a most important part in the Terrorist plots in Kussia. Not far from where the Grand Duke lives, and also in the central part of St. Petersburg, a detective arrested a comely girl of seventeen, apparently respectable, educated, and refined. It was broad daylight. The agent seized her by one hand, and ordered a constable, who chanced to be standing near, to catch her other hand. Thus they went to' the station, which is on the fourth storey. No hitch occurred until, on reaching the door, the policeman released the girl's hand in order to press the handle. \At that instant the gleam of steer was seen, an explosion was heard, and the constable fell senseless to the ground with a bullet through his skull. The young lady had not time to repeat the act; she was knocked down by the agent, and taken into the station. The revolver was still loaded with six bullets, and she carried seven reserve cartridges in her pocket. She refused to disclose her name.

In another part of the city >? at two o'clock, a young man, walking in a most frequented-street, was arrested suddenly by two detectives, but managed to pull out a revolver and fire, to the terror of the passers-by, who fled panic-stricken. Two shots took effect, each detective being wounded, but the Terrorist was finally apprehended.

•About the same time, in Morskaya, which is the Regent Street of St. Petersburg, two young and welldressed individuals were arrested and hurried off to the station, their hands being held all the time. One was found to be carrying a bomb, the other a revolver andT some reserve cartridges. One is said to be an Italian Pressman, but both refused to answer the questions put to them. Five conspirators arriving from Finland were arrested.

Among the sixty individuals taken into custody two organisers of a plot against the Grand Duke are said to be included. A curious detail is that the house of a millionaire, who owns fifty steamers on the Volga, has bfeen searched at night, and arrests made in various flats.

So long as the police remains disorganised sanguinary crimes which may amount to disaster are possible at any moment, and the consciousness of this contingency fosters restlessness, distrust, and alarm throughout the Empire.

An old rusty bullet-marked campoven, which was recently shown to a Dominion representative in Hawke's Bay, was said to have an interesting history amongst the natives. It appears that it figured in the battle of Omaranui, about 1867, as the headgear of a Maori warrior. The iron handle of the oven was utilised as a chin-strap, and although at .times in the thickest of the fight, the native for some time escaped injury. He appeared to think, however, that he was almost immune from danger, and whilp exposing himself thoughtlessly was shot dead with a bullet which went clean through the camp-oven into his brain

<; Some little ago," says Mr J. G-. Boyle, Kelmscott, W.A., "I was suffering from a severe cough, which threatened to take a serious form. Hearing so much about Chamberlain's Cough Remedy I decided to give_ it a trial, and to my great satisfaction was completely cured by the time 1 had finished the first bottle." For sale by J. Bonning, Blenheim, and W. Sym*, Picton. *