DISTRESS IN RUSSIA. Suffering Among Peasant.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 119, 12 September 1885, Page 3

DISTRESS IN RUSSIA. Suffering Among Peasant.

Now that war's alarms are past (let us hope for a long time to come) the attention of the Russian people is being directed to the general condition of the country, which from all acoounts is 10 bad that it oould hardly be worse. The papers, though compelled by the terrors of the censorship to withhold news that they would like to publish, are full of dolorous news of bad agricultural prospects, of the grinding poverty of the masses, of riots in the rura districts, of distress in towns, failures of provincial banks, closed factories and suffering landowners. The ruined peasants of some of the most fertile parts of the empire, says the Moscow " Gazette," are selling their poor cabins for next to nothing, and wandering in famished crowds to # seek their fortunes in the eastern steppes in the Caucasus, and even in Siberia. But, whenever they can, the police stop them on their way and force them back to their wretched homes. « , „ Owing to the smallnesß of present holdings and the pressure of taxation, the country people ar,e reduced to the direst extremity Some of them cannot even afford a sufficiency of the black bread whioh forms the Btaple food of the vast majority of the rural population. They have to supplement it with vegetable soups and the bark of trees, which in too many instances form their sole dietary. In these circumstances | it is not surprising to learn that brigandage is greatly on the increase, and that the country should be traversed in all directions by bands of masterless men, who live mostly by begging and thieving, and with whom, by reason of their numbers, the police are utterly unable to cope. The grinding poverty of the masses is well described in a letter lately addreesed by the well known writer, Oaspenski, tothe"RouBskia Vedomosti." Helives on the old Moscow road, and there is not an hour of the day, he says, that wayfarers do not come knocking at his window, beseeching him "for the love of God " to bestow a trifle on a poor traveller. These beggars consist of peasants of both sexes, of people from St. Petersburg who have lost their places, of robust workmen out of work, and even of the well-edu-cated, who have been reduced to want by no fault of their own. "And yet there is no sort of public provision for these unfortunates ; no means whereby they can obtain either bread, work, or shelter." These are the words of a Russian writer, not mine. In the south and east of Russia brigandage is becaming quite a pest. A few weeks ago a band of malefactors, after committing quite a series of murders and robberies in the neighbourhood of Odessa, fell into the hands of the police. Daring the investigation that followed the capture it came out that thfiee marauders were connected with an extensive thieving organisation whose field of activity included the whole of South Russia.

Catching a Nihilist Tartar. The nihilists continue to show renewed signs of activity, thereby adding to the troubles of the Government and the difficulties of the police. A short time ago the police of Kharkoff heard from their spies that two younp men, about whom very little was known, were leading a quiet, mysterious sort of a life inthehouseNo. B,Elenskayastreet, and that one of them occasionally disappeared for several days together This was quite enough to rouaa the suspicions of the authorities, and on May 14th they made an unannounced visit to the rooms occupied by the mysterious individuals. They found only one of them at home, but he proved a host in himself in more cases than one. Taking a revolver from under the cushion of the sofa on which he was sitting, he drew on the intruders point blank, killed on the spot Commissioner Tessenko and badly wounded in the arm one of the gensdarmes. On this the other gensdarmes rushed into the street shouting for help, which speedily coming in the shape of a small regiment of policemen, the rebel, after a short but sharp struggle, was overpowered and conveyed to prison. At Teasenko'a funeral, which took place a few days later, the murderer, under strong es cort, was compelled to follow his victim's body to the grave. The police continue to be remorselessly " clever," as we say in England, on the slightest symptom of political heterodoxy. The other day it was announced that, "by order of the Czar,' a pupil of the seminary of TifKs, suspected of holding subversive ideas, was forcibly enlisted into the army and ordered to remain a private soldier until Ihe should renounce his erroneous views and repent him of the evil he had done— or thought.

Muzzling the Press In Finland. A curious and characteristic incident has lately come to pass in Finland, which, as most people are aware, enjoys a certain measure of independence. The press there, moreover, is not quite so tightly muzzled as in Russia proper; but during the late controversy with England some Finnist papers were &o I 111- advised as to bint disapproval of the imperial policy in Central Asia. On this the Governor- General straightway issued a fiat forbidding all discussion by the papers in his juriediction of a whole series of subjects, on the ground that such liberty of the press as by grace of the Emperor prevails in Finland is to be used but not abused, himself being, of course, the judge of what constitutes abuse. "While we have entire confidence in the loyalty and discretion of the Finnish people," ran the decree, "we cannot allow evil-mmdedmen openly to advocate false opinions." What a Solon of a Governor ! A very Daniel come to judgment 1 So long as evil-minded men (read editorß of newspapers) advocate orthodox opinions they may say what they like ; presumably, also, fair-minded men are free to promulgate false opinions. But the lino must be drawn somewhere, and when the evil-minded take to that sort of thipg they must be put down, every Russian GovernorGeneral being, of course, able to read men s minds and distinguish at a glance the true from the false. -William Westall, in the " San Francisco Chronicle.