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Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 414, 26 October 1889, Page 6

C/ak Alexander* has juet performed fch° most popular act of his reign by granting * full pardon to the famous poet and author, Tschernischewski, whoso name is a watch* word among the people throughout' tho length and breadth of Russia. Twentytivo yoors have elapsed since the rainy May day 'when at 8 o'clock in the morning he was placed in the pillory in one of the public squares of St. Peteraburgh, while an officer of the gendarmerie read aloud the sentence condemning him to fourteen years' hard labour in the salt. mines of Siberia. At length, in 1884, the shackles were struck oil' from his wrists, ankles and waist aud he was permitted to take up his residence in one of the penal settlements of Western Siberia, where he enjoyed a relative amount of liberty.. To-day, at the age of 60, he returns to his native land, utterly shattered in health, and, it is said, also in mind. All his near relatives and former companions are dead. Of his once handsome fortune not a kopeck remains, and for the remainder of his days he will be depondonfc on the charity of those who have learned to know snd love him for his writings and from the oft- told story of his martyrdom in one of the most dreary and desolate settlements of the Czar'i great Asiatic empire. He was moreover deprived of his rank as Councillor of State and as a noble. , For eight long yeara the delicately-reared poet toiled in chains in the dark depths of the great Nortchinak salt mines without ever obtaining a glimpse of the light of day, and then he was transferred to those at Volyniak. There he remained until' five years ago, his original sentence of fourteen years of hard labour having been prolonged to twenty in consequence of numerous attempts made by his admirers to effect his escape. , . ". The crime for which Tschernischewski suffered such terrible punishment was the somewhat socialistic tone of certain articles published in the *' Sovremenink" (Contemporary) a monthly review appearing in that city, and the authorship of a book which, under the title " What is to be Done," is nothing more or less than a gospel and encyclopaedia of nihilism. Ho was the first of nihilistic martyrs, and is looked on as the father of nihilism.