RUSSIAN OFFICERS AND CIVILIANS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 25, 23 February 1909, Page 4

RUSSIAN OFFICERS AND CIVILIANS

P The indigaation of the public at the w- sentence passed upon the brothers Kovalensky for killing and wounding with revolver shots half-a-dozen private citiEg;. zena on the Nevsky Prospect is but p-1 taintly expressed, thanks to martial law, El in the Opposition newspapers, lip . The eider •brother, a, cornet in a R& Guards regiment, sentenced to three p"' moothfe' arrest in, the guard-house, said fe in- court, just before sentence -was gk passed, that he regretted the cirtnimjfc stances which had caused his action, but he was confident that he iiad acted as g? became m officer. The younger, a P? „ Schoolboy in the last class of the aristoeratio Corps dee Pages, where he had Iffi' * been several' time? previously punished ip:' for being: drunk in public places, was after the affair suddenly converted into W:' a, soldier by being ordered to do his fg compulsory military service in the CauKpv casus, Willi permission to return and Bbx"-. take the usual examinations, thereby ensuring tha.t he will lose nothing whatRt,'. ever by his act. Both brothers, the only Rv • children of an influential senator who Sv - was formerly head of the all-powerful secret police, thus became liable to trial W,. by military <£>urt, which acquitted the younger and sentenced the elder to a g.- nominal penalty. It is thus demonSr etrated to the Eussian. public that these p- dreaded courts-martial, which for weeks C 'iave hanged four mea a day on the fL average, regard hilling; and wounding Est ■- the unarmed citizen under any circuuiK;' stances as a necessary part of military K v duty. On the same day that the g|* * brothers Kovalensky usedi revolvers on Bp; the Sewky Prospect a peasant of urn-E.''-teen .was hanged {or using his fists om a peliceman. K«!' One of the men fatally wounded by Kg" poraet yovalensky was the policeman Hp-, who came tfp to do his duty in dispersg&-- <og the people who collected to see the row made by the brothers with the driver 5i a motor-car which collided ■E-' witfi their cab. The plea was adroitly Bp i jturned to one of "wounding a policeman Bp- under the impression that he was a private citizen, and, during the trial, ■pif was \further weakened down to "not K* wwgnising the unffomi of the policeSgs jiioq owiag to the excitement and bad

, "INTERFERING .WITH POLICE." Xo one, of course, wanted to see these young men hanged ,as scores of others ' aro being hanged .every month, on a of "interfering with the police " in the execution of their duty." But >tbe ease brings out in very strong cons trast the real condition of Russia. Men whose "loyalty" is officially proved by ■their uniform are practically immune; others, who m!ay or may not be "loyal," but are always suspected of disloyalty, are hanged out of hand for infinitely •mafler offences >tfiuun, that of the KovaJeosfcys. The papers take the view thai this case condemns the wholesale sacri"/flcß of lfie by courts-martial and the entire system which places the military arm above the law and: in command of •t'the Uvea of the civil population. If tried by the ordinary civil courts according .. to the law of the land, the elder Kovnlensky would, on the facts proved be .Jfore the court-martial, have been liable .to a long term of penal servitude in Siberia. As it is, he is already a hero . .among his own caste. When sentence ■was delivered half the public present , cheered—these were the friends of the military hierarchy; the rest hissed and ,booeds—these represented the rest of Btfssla. The general feeling found ex- ' pression on the spot when the shooting r yra& in progress: 'Ton ought to have .shown your bravery in Manchuria!" .shouted one of the spectators.