CONFESSION BY THE NIHILIST HARTMANN.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2341, 4 October 1881, Page 3

CONFESSION BY THE NIHILIST HARTMANN.

The "New York Herald "publishes a seven column letter from Leo Hartmann, giving a detailed account of the attempt to blow up the late Czar on the Moscow .Railway in 1879. He says the plan was hii own. He formed it after Soloviefi's unsuccessful attempt, went to St. Petersburg, and was made a member of tbe Executive Committee, submitting himself unconditionally to its commands. The Committee had eleoted three of its members, Sophie Perovsky, Evjatkovsky (both now executed), and another person, an Administrative Counoil. The highest military authority of the Social Revolutionary party laid a plan before this Council. Agents were sent to examine all the railways over which the Czar might pass on his way from the Crimea and find a house whioh might be used as an available point for starting a mine. The agents found a house for sale in Moscow, within a hundred feet of the Southern Railway. The Council purchased this for 2500 roubles. "I was instructed," says Hartmann, "to select co-operators and take possession. Sophie Perovsky, Goldenburg (who later committed suicide in the St. Petersburg Fortress), and two others volunteered to accompany me. Sophie and I preceded the others on September 7th, disguised as a Russian merchant and wife, by the name of Subhorukoff. We,fitted up the house after the style of religious and loyal business subjects. To quiet the suspicions of tbe police end neighbors, we went to church regularly, and invited tbe priests to tbe houie. We employed two workmen to dig a large hole, ostensibly for an <oe cellar. This was finished on the 6th October, when we telegraphed for help to St. Petersburg. Inrce men arrived next day. We decided to dig a gallery from the cellar under the street, 4ft beneath the surface, to the railway l'ue, whioh was a distance of 150 ft. Though having no knowledge of mining work, we deoided to make the gallery triangular in shape, 46in high, and 36in broad at the foot. We used large steel knives for tunnelling and spades for throwing out the earth into the cellar, whence it was taken in iron pa : ls to a dark closet in the rear of the house. When the gallery was too far advanced to throw out the earth with spades, a piece of sheet iron, with its sides bent so as to form a box, was used, with a long rope and windlass. Sophie worked with the men, doing her share of the labor in the gallery, as well as taking care of the house and oooking. The sides of the gallery were secured by boards 3in thick, and placed one against the other in the foi.n of a sloping roof lighted by lanterns hung from the top. An iron tube communicating with the chimney of the house was used as a ventilator. We worked from five in the morning until eleven or midnight daily. Only two, myself and another, were sma" enough to work in the gallery. We dug daily seven feet. Icy water was always two inches deep in the bottom of the gallery, so we had to work in linen shirts and underwear. Two men fell ill, and were replaced by others. When within twenty-two feet of the line heavy rain washed a hole in the middle of the street, letting water into the gallery and exposing its roof. We were three days advancing seven feet,but were unable to go faster on account of the oommotion made by the passing traine. The last 15ft. were pierced with a large steel bore. The shaft was now Darely large enough for a man to crawl into on his stomach, where he worked, stretched at full length in ioy water. When the work was finished we found the supply of dynamite insufficient. Goldenberg was sent south to bring 801 b. more and 200 roubles. Agents were sent along the line from Simpheropol te Mossow, and telegraphed that the Czar would leave the former place on the 15th. Then news came of Goldenberg's arrest. Only four days remained. We decided to risk all with what we had. We filled a large copper cylinder, 7ft long and half a foot diameter, with dynamite. Next day we placed it in the shaft, at the farthest end. There were 1201bs of dynamite in nine cylinders. They were armed with oapsules, and wires were fastened oommunioating with a spiral Rumkorff, in a trunk full of linen, in Perovsky's bedroom. Thenoe the wires were communioated with a commutator placed with a galvanic battery in a barn overlooking the railway line. The morning of the explosion dawned. The two who were to accomplish it were alone in the house. They were Sophie and another. The former had to observe the approach of the train and give the signal. The latter was posted near the commutator, and had to close the galvanio chain on hearing the signal. The Russian Government does not know who the other one was, and I do not consider it expedient to dispel its ignorance. The moment of the explosion had come. The train sped along the line, the signal was given, the chain was locked, a deafening report was heard, a column of earth rose over the bed of the railroad two oarriages were lifted into the air, and thrown with terrible violence into the field below. In the meantime Sophie Perovsky and the othor crossed the yard to the furthest end, passed through an opening in the railway, prepared beforehand, into a neighboring yard, then through the doorway into the street, and sauntered off quietly down the street, where there was a safe plaoe of ooncealment. The same day we left for St. Petersburg by the night express. The next day the Czar reached the capital. A large crowd gathered to see him. Nearly the whole of the garrison of St. Petersburg was under arms, lining the streets from the railway station to the Winter Palace. In the crowd were innumerable spies, but we were there and nobody knew us." Hartmann closes his letter with a eulogy of the Nihilists and defence of their work. It is said that arrangements have boon made to have him lecture on the subject. He is roceived with aversion by all save a few Socialists, and the press of th? country s»ys that while America has sympathy for every honorable aspiration tor liberty in Russia, sho has nothing but detestation for every scheme of assassination.