SOPHIA PEROWSKA IDEALIZED.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2620, 13 August 1881, Page 2

SOPHIA PEROWSKA IDEALIZED.

The execution of the assassins of Alexander -11. has not produced the effect hoped for. “In Russia,” says a correspondent of the Paris “Voltaire,” “ where a species of dreamy mysticism forms, so to speak, the flower and fruit of the national temperament, criminals who are constantly sent to the gallows are easily transformed by the popular imagination into heroes and martyrs, and their lives are surrounded with a halo of legend which works on the mind of the masses.” In this way, he adds, each capital execution has become a means of propagating Nihilism, and instead of decreasing its supporters only makes fresh converts. For example, Sophia Pcrowska has been elevated into a sort of St. Agnes. Her life has been written in the form of a religious romance, in which the most extraordinary virtues are attributed to her. She is worshipped as a maityr, and the Nihilist faithful regard the clothes she wore and the ringlets which were cut from her bead as so many precious relics. These objects have been distributed as talismans among the leaders of the party. The Sunday preceding her execution Alexander 111. received a letter, which concluded as follows : “ If she is executed, thou wilt perish thyself, and thy death will be far more frightful than that of thy father. That death will overtake thee far more speedily than thy valets imagine.”