A Lively Life for the Czar.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 375, 21 June 1881, Page 3

A Lively Life for the Czar.

"■♦■V" —: ; . A London cablegram of 28th April states that a letter from St Petersburg gives a J gloomy account of the new . Czar’s ' life; at the Castle of Galschina, " thirty miles from the capital. Before the Court; removed thither several hundred artizans of the Preobrazinskyregiments were sent to make the necessary alterations. At midnight they', assembled in the Church of. Galschina and were sworn to. silence; death _or Siberia being the penalty of violating the oath. Ten roubles was the price of each man’s silence> The alterations were made

in forty-eight'hours. Vodke (Russian i whisky) soofr loosened the tongues of the. workmen, and the following is a description of the precautions against assassination made in the palace of the ' Czar“ A subterranean passage leads / ‘ from the Czar’s room to the stable, , where a .number of horses are kept . .saddled and bridled, day and night ; .. sentinels are posted at intervals of twenty yards all around the building. The Imperial bedroom has. two; windows, protected at night by, massive Iron shutters, which can only be reached from the outside , by passing throughthree spacious ante chambers, in Which are posted eighty Cossacks armed to the teeth. They are allowed to speak - and‘move about in the two outer roomsj but in the hall adjoining the bedroom perfect silence is maintained all night The General on duty for the day sits in ,an easy chair, his Cossacks sitting , on a; divan, which runs around the whole room. At the General’s right is the knob of an electric apparatus, ~ which rings a bell in every guardhouse within the palace grounds. When the Emperor is about to retire, ; before shutting the door he removes

I’lC UUICI JMIIUIC; 91/ limb 111/ VUUAULC can be effected until he himself personally opens the door from the inside. . Unlike; bis. father r he cannot endure armed soldiers in his bedchamber. It is j: , . said>that the anrest of the-Grand Duke Constantine will likely be followed by a Nihilist' movement of the sailors in the Russian fleet, who are said to * ' have an understanding with a number of other Nihilists at Odessa. A Nihilist . appeal, to the Russian army has been widely circulated in St Petersburg. In ,this document the autocrat's principle /J J to a decrepit,' despised, and abandoned creature. The proclamation abends by calling on the army to rise and ' V strike down tyrants.” .