RUSSIA.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 436, 27 December 1861, Page 3

RUSSIA.

A disturbance has broken out in St. Petersburg, of all places in the world, amongst the students of the University. The causes which led to this result are rathrr complex, but they may be briefly summed upin the natural resistance offered by the youth who are in training in the colleges »,o new imposts and checks upon them by the Government. Education in the University has been hitherto almost gratuitous, an anomaly under a despotic system. The authority have recently thought it necessary to make the students pay certain ices, not very large, but operating, nevertheless, practically as an expulsion upon many students now going through their course, effectually excluding hereafter a large class who would otherwise have been entitled to the benefi's of the cuiriculurn. Ttie distinctive dress ol the students was abolished at the same time. These proceedings, which boie all the appearance of a tyrannical pressurei were followed

by meetings ot the sunJi-ius—-these meetings by arrests, by fresh demonstrations; and in the middle of the uproar the Gordian knot' was cut by the shutting up of the University. At the town of Leinberg. in Austrian Poland, there has been a popular outbreak, attended by serious results, and the editor of a national paper there has been condemned to five years hard labor, forfeiture of his nobility and half nis deposit, with deprivation of the right of ever exercising his profession again, for inciting the people to sedition. On the anniversary of Kosciugko's death, the city he'd a solemn ceremony, and notwithstanding a prohibition from the Government, all the shops were closed. The people thronged the churches to offer up prayers, and there was not a single symptom of disturbance. In the midst of stillness, the military appeared, surrounded arid entered the churches, arrested hundreds of persons, paraded the streets driving the people before them, and committing many acs of savage barbarity. In consequence of these proceedings the clergy have shut up' the churches under a solemn protest against the despotism of Government. The Council of State has suspended its sittings, and the city has been placed in a state of siege.