THE REIGN OF TERROR IN RUSSIA.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1697, 29 July 1879, Page 4

THE REIGN OF TERROR IN RUSSIA.

The Berlin correspondent of the " Standard'' telegraphs :—" Advices from St. Petersburg give additional information respecting the important trial of political prisoners at Kieff, announced for the 12th instant, which recently concluded. There wore altogether fourteen accused, including seven women. They were arrested after a desperate resistance on tho night of tbe 11th February. Secret printing presses and publications, as well "as false seals, wero at the same time seized. One police officer was killed and three others wounded in arresting tho prisoners. Amongst the accused was a Prussian subject, and one Greek subject. Eour of the persons are described as noble. Two were acquitted, Tera Vaesilieff, tho daughter of a non-commissioned officer, and Catherine Nitotchaieff, the widow of a druggist. Two were sentenced to he shot, a Prussian, and an unknown person, calling himself Antonoff, charged with armed resistance to the police, and causing the death of one police agent and slightly wounding three others. Eight of tho accused, including several nobles and Nastusia Armfield, the daughter of a privy councillor, and Eckaterina Sarendovitch, the daughter of a College assessor, charged with taking part in a revolutionary society, wero sentenced to fourteen years' and ten months' hard labor in the mines. Marie Eovalevslii, the daughter of a gentleman, charged with the same offence, was sentenced to the same term of hard labor in tho mines ; and Alexandra Potalitsine, tho daughter of a retired captain, was sentenced to four years' hard labor in the mines."

The St. Petersburg correspondent of the "Daily News" sends the following:—"The execution of Antonoff, Brandtner, and OBiDsiy took place at Kieff on the 29th ult,, at 10 a.m. A closed prison carriage, surrounded by Cossacks, conveyed the condemned to a field on derated ground about a verst from the prison. Two Greek priests and a Lutheran clergyman followed, although the prisoners sternly, it is even said savagely, refused the last religious rites. As they went they were observed anxiously looking along the road leading to tho place of execution. This wos surrounded by a regiment of infantry, one battalion of reserves, and a regiment of Cossacks. Behind the square formed by the military a large mass of people collected, three scaffolds being visible |from afar. When the condemned men descended from the' van their prison dresses wero removed and thoy were habited n long white cloaks, virtually shrouds with hoods attached. They still refused all religious services. Their sentences wero then read. Not one of them spoke. They were allowed to bid each other farewell, ard they embraced. Their heads were then covered with the hoods, and their hands tied, and they were conducted to the foot of the scaffold. Antonoff mounted first, with a slow, faltering stop, requiring support from the executioner. Brandtner came next. Then followed Osicsky. The execution lasted from seven to eight minutes. Tho bodies remained hanging half an hour. They were cut down, and fell into pits prepared for them, and were then and there buried."

The following are additional particulars respecting the seizure at Kieff:—On the night of the 28th the gendarmes arrested two strangers, who had at their lodgings, in a quiet part of the city, a mould and a considerable quantity of materials for the manufacture of Orsini bombs. A box, six feet long by two feet deep, was fitted throughout with little cases, containing glass bottles filled with a while combustible material, ascertained to bo pyroxyline, to be exploded by percussion caps, of which 500 were found. Thero was also nails of a peculiar shape for closing the aperture of the balls, on which caps wore fitted. Two metal balls, presumably hand grenades, which wero possibly intended for models,'were,' also found, as well as four revolvers, two blunt daggers, some cartridges, and various passports, no doubt forged, ovoral being in duplicate The Supremo Tribunal, specially crentod to try the prisoner Solovieff, for his attempt on the life of the Emperor, is composed of the Presidents of tho Departments of State Council, and first-class Senators of tho Court of Cassation, under the presidency of Count O. N. TTrusoff. The Public Prosecutor is tho Minister of Justice, M. D. N. Nabokoff, arid M. E. M. Shamsl'ine, State Secretary of the Imperial Council, will fulfil tho duties of secretary. Secretary LcontiefE has acted as examining Judge. The indictment fills thirty-two foolscap pages, and was received back from Livadia on the 14th inst. Tho contents are Tery carefully guarded, but do not oontoin any remarkable statements or revelations as to the conspirators and their proceedings. Indeed j an important feature in the organisation of ' the revolutionists is that tho members ore not extensively known to each other. Tho subdivisions of the societies do not consist of so many as ten or twelve porsons, as has been stated, but only of two or three individuuls, and these are only known to each other literally by the names assumed and maintained for the purpose of secrecy, and for more effectually guarding against possible betrayals. A Kieff paper seriously but ludicrously alleges, as one of the gravest charges against these men, as brought to light in the < recent trials there, that they have invented for the purposes of mutual identification :name» " quite unknown $o Russian ears,"