FREEMASONS IN RUSSIA.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13754, 20 June 1913, Page 7

FREEMASONS IN RUSSIA.

A BAD TIME.

Among all tho real and imaginary, foes of autocratic authority in Russia, uono arc more feared or moro relentlessly suppressed than those wlio go by tho name of Masons, or M.assonisti. Jews, Poles, and Socialists, hated «s they are by the Royalist Party, arc yet allowed some freedom of life, and even of propaganda, and anything or anybody bearing the name of Mason, is ferreted out by tho secret police1 and dealt with in the most summary fashion.- The list of victims who have suffered banishment and deatli in Russia for bearing this "revolutionary" name of Mason forms one/of the darkest pages in the history' of Russian political inquisitions. After the mutiny of 1825 of tho officers of the Guards, known Mas the Decembrists, in which many prominent Masons took an activo part, the lodges of the latter were declared to bo political, guilty of political sedition and intrigue against tho Tsar, and were put under tho ban. Hundreds of Masons wore sent to Siberia, most of them dyio-g in the convict mines.

The recent Slavophile demonstrations which followed tho victories of Adrianople and. Scutari were..'also declared to be Masonic manifestations in dis-

guise ! "It is clear," writes a E : usrsiaii, commenting on these incidents, "that the Government looks upon-every society of enlightenment and progress as--a dangerous manifestation of. Masonry. It is a sad day for- the Fatherland that these things are so." .