HOW THE TSAR ESCAPED.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8937, 1 October 1907, Page 4

HOW THE TSAR ESCAPED.

Twenty-tnree revolutionists will stand tlioir trad- at St, Petersburg, charged with a series of political murders and with an attempt on the life of the Tsar himself. The prisoners are all educated people, ; three of them being well-known ht. i Petersburg advocates, and two being women students of the university. Thev belonged to the ‘‘Boyavaya Partia, ” the dreaded fighting organisation which has committted so many deeds of terror in past years. Tills particular group formed the centre of the St. Petersnrg committee which decided some eight months ago to ‘ r remove” certain High Court dignitaries. At its head were a beautiful lady student known as “Tovaisbtcha Nina,” or ‘‘Comrade Nina,” and the advocate Feodosielr. They had condemned to death the I Chief Military Prosecutor, General j Pavloff, the Prefect of St. Peters- i burg, Von der Lannitz, the Premier, i Stolypin, the ex-Minister, Dnrnovo, I the Grand Dukes Vladimir Alexan- . firovitch and Nicolai Nicolaicvitcb, and at least the Tsar himself. They, however, only snccecac,, m executing two of their intended victims Soon after the assassination ot General Pavloff the police discovered the tracks of the group, andespoially of its head, ‘‘Comrade Nina,” but they were unable to lay hands on tliis dangerous girl,- who escaped by travelling continually between St. Petersburg and Moscow. After the murder of • Lannitz the police obtained proofs which _showed that ‘‘Comrade Nina” had been its chief organiser. They even discovered the laboratory whore the ‘‘Boyavaya Paritia” made their bombs and explosives. ‘‘Comrade Nina,” warned again in time, succeeded intrenching one of her Moscow hiding-places, and when the police raided the laboratory all the bombs, firearms, and correspondence and prohibited literature bad been removed. The attempt to blow up the train which carried Grand Duke Nicolai Nicolaiovitch and M. Stolypin was the work of the same party. St. Petersburg post-master had a sou a tionist who spout most of his time in his father’s office. There he I made friends with a soldier of the Imperial Guard and a Cossack who stood sentry in front of the office. Chatting with his new acquaintance the young man always succeeded m turning conversation on the life at Court and the habits of the highlyplaced personalities, obtaining thus the most valuable information of the party. A number of other plotters, both men and women, afterwards made their appearance at Tsarskoe Solo, Poterhof, and Strolne, where, 1 flirting with Imperial household servants, they, too, obtained all sorts of necessary particulars about their inteueded victims’ movements. At Tsarskoe Selo, now the permanent residence of the Tsar and his family, one of the plotters learned from an infatuated servant the time of the Premier’s visit to Court. Another obtained a plan of all the huge park through which the Imperial family and their household are accustomd to drive for their recreation, They also made friends with the dairymaids who are permitted to cuter the park, learning whether the maids were searched by the guards and whether the contents of their jugs were ever inspected. In order to gain admittance to Court the son of the post-master applied for a situation as singer in the Court Chapel, but his offer was declined. The plot, however' was developing very satisfactorily, and it only failed by the merest accident at the eleventh hour. One of the conspirators, the girl student Mdllo. Suhova, who acted as a nurse in the Botkin Barracks, succumbed to the nervous strain of her perilous double duty, and attempted to shoot herself. The shot took no fatal effect, and the would-be suicide was removed to the Obukhoff Hospital, where she has since recovered from her injury. As she did not possess a license to carry firearms; the police became suspicious and searched her rooms. In a linen basket„they found bombs, explosives, rifles, revolvers, and prohibited literature. A second basket contained plans of Poterhof, Tsarskoe Solo, Streluo, and the Gatchiue estates, in which the roads frequented by the Imperial family and the high dignitaries during their drives weie marked in rod ink, the spots being specially noted from which the revolutionists could easily throw their bombs. They also discovered the correspondence of the organisation, addresses of the members of the military organisation, and of the men implicated in the plot. The whole find consisted “apparently of the goods which had so mysteriously disappeared from the laboratory of ‘ ‘ Comrade ” After this discovery Mdlle. Suhova and all the conspirators were at once arrested, amongst them being an official from the Ministry of the Interior and the'advocates Feodosieff, Tarassoc, and Tchiaboroff. Only two members of the plot succeeded in escaping abroad; the rest are now awaiting trial by court-martial.