ONE OF THE LATE CZAR'S ESCAPES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3213, 17 October 1881, Page 4

ONE OF THE LATE CZAR'S ESCAPES.

Among many infernal machines employed by the Nihilists in Russia, the American apple-pie was much used. Four times in one week did the Lord Chamberlain detect this dreaded viand among the dishes on the Czar's table, where it had been placed by some unknown hand. About a month before his death the Czar was invited to attend the annual picnic of the United Order of Buttonhole Workers at Scadger's Park, on the other side of the Neva. After playing Copenhagen for seven or eight hours, the Czar was offered some suspicious-look-ing lemonade, which he prudently declined. Noticing this, a baffled Nihilist approached, and, after walking carefully round the Emperor, said to him, with assumed respent : —" Your Majesty wears light pants, I perceive." "As you see," replied the ""nmeror. "Ts nor thfi* oorrect? "Precisely." exciivime'l t-he conspirator; "butit is the custom for wearers of light pants to sit down on a pie." "Is the custom imperative ?" asked the Czar, gloomily. " bsolutely, sir. It is a matter of tradition." " Then let a pie be produced," said the Czar. This was instantly done, the great American cemetery-erowder being placed on a stump in front of the Fmperor. "Ts it vita'ly necessary that it should be a blackberry pie ?" said the dictator of all the Russias, dividing his coat-tail with ashudder. " s you say, sir." " But I don't exactly understand," hesitated the despot. " Suppose you sit down first, just to show me how." " I—your Mnjesty," stammered the conspirator; "I —I— er — you see my trousers are old and —and black —they have been half-soled—it—it would be no—" " Squat!" roared the autocrat, euddenly whipping out his revolver. The miserable wretch sat down with a groan, and instantly after vanished through the tree tops. The pie had been loaded with nitro-glycerine. "I knew it," muttered the Emperor, and, calling together his privy council with a dog whisMe, he the next car for the ferry. —Little Rock., Ark., Gazette.