THE WRITING ON THE WALL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 300, 19 December 1877, Page 4

THE WRITING ON THE WALL.

[Pall Mall Gazette.] Ifc requires no prophet to interpret the meaning of the following placard, which was affixed during one and the same night on the walls of private houses and Government Buildings in most of the principal cities and towns in Russia : Teligeam of the Official Gazette. St. Pbtbrsbotsgt, Sth September, — By order of H.M. the Emperor, a Commission has ibeen instituted, composed of representatives of all classes, under the presidency of Prince Gortachakoff, for the purpose of considering two questions— (l) The discovery of means for the further prosecution of the war, in view of the entire dieorganization of the finances, and the exhaustion of all the resources of the Empire ; and (2) the preparation of a constitutional form of Government. It was noe until the agents of the police began to tear down these placards that the people wbo heui assembled in groups to read them became aware that the startling " writing on the wall " was a revolutionary hoax ; notwithstanding that in each case the placard purported to have been printed at the printing of the chief local authority. The facts stated in the placard are so patent, and the desire for peace ie so general on the part of that section of the Russian public which has no chance of getting the Gross of St. ©9orge, or making a fortune out of army contracts, that few could doubt the authenticity of the intelligence that the Emperor had resolved to make peace and to grant a Constitution. This is the most serious move that has yefc been made by the Russian secret societies ; for unlike previous proclamations from the same source, She statements now made are truthful and moderate. At the sume time the remedy suggested commends itself to the intelligence of a hrge section of the educated portion of the community ; by whom, indeed, the war has, from the outset, been regarded as the precursor of great ioternal reforms, culminating in a constitution. Simultaneously with this movement, which has greatly alarmed the Imperial authorities, owing to the extraordinary success with which it has been effected (not a single arrest having been made), the armies of the Czar in Europe and Asia are being appealed to by revolutionary emissaries, who distribute seditious proclamations and tracts in great numbers to the soldiery, explaiuing the injustice of the war, and the necessity of doing away with the incompetent Grand Dukes, generals, and officers who are leading them — nofc to glory but to slaughter. It is supposed that the marked apathy of the Russian soldiers in Auia is in some measure due So those appeals, and therefore great efforts ure being made to eradicate the evil, which extends also to the troops left at home in barracks.