A Nihilist's Disguise.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 229, 19 November 1887, Page 2

A Nihilist's Disguise.

Thb Odessa correspondent of the " Daily Ncwb " writes :-~A case transpired here the other day which reveals in a curious manner the successful r-uses adopted by the Nihilists for the spread of their revolutioaary literature. An apparently halfdomented and harmless person, a young man of some twenty-five years of age and very poorly clad, has for some time past picked up a precarious livelihood as a peripatetic vendor of almanacs, calendars, children's story-books, etc. All these articles were of the cheap, popular quality. His basket and wallet contained also the showy prints of religious subjects much affected by the poorer classes. A few days ago he was detected in the sale of Nihili&t literature. He was arrested, and his stock confiscated. His character of a poor imbecile, (supported by the evidence of the police, and his story of acquiring the forbidden literature at a trifling cost from an unknown stranger, and his general incoherence and inability to read or write, were so evident to the I bench that he was at once discharged. A couple of days later it was found that the imbecile colporteur's passport was false; and, the police discovering that he was known to certain citizens as appearing on many occasions in private circles as a welldressed well-educated, liighly ■ informed young man who spoke learnedly on matters of internal policy, a warrant was immediately issued for his re-arrest. It is needless to say that he has not been found, nor is he likely to be. The characters- arid disguises assumed by many of these young propagandists defy the utmost vigilance oi the regular and secret police, and successfully deceive, as in this case, both magistrates and the so-called lynx-eyed Russian judges of instruction.