The Czar in Danger.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 9, 24 January 1905, Page 1

The Czar in Danger.

St. Petersburg, January 20. The Czar and Czarina, with the Dowager Empress and a brilliant t company, participated in the ceremony of blessing the waters of the Neva. When the Metropolitan was uttering the benediction the guns of the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul saluted, and simultaneously something crashed through the upper window of the St. Nicholas Hall, at the Winter Palace. It was at first attributed to the concussion of the guns, but it was soon found that an iron bullet, an inch in diameter, had penetrated the window. When the Imperial party retired to the palace the crowd became greatly excited, but later it was officially explained that a charge of shrapnel, instead of a saluting charge, had been tired from a .gun belonging to one of the batteries stationed near the Bourse, and some of the bullets stiuck the facade of the palace, breaking four windows. A policeman was wounded. Apparently the 17th battery of the First Hofse Artillery, the most aristocratic corps in the army, fired the shot. After gun practice on Tuesday a loaded shell was inadvertently left in the gun. The circumstance is popularly considered to be highly suspicious, as this gun happened to be poi iting in the direction .of the pavilion, where the ceremony was proceeding. Sinister rumours are current that the incident is the outcome of a military conspiracy. The whole battery implicated has been arrested. Court officials admit they were warned something untoward would happen. The Oouit was startled because the regiment was officered entirely by noblemen. The Czar exhibited marked cool-, ness, and held a diplomatic reception afterwards. The plot theory concerning the St. Petersburg incident is gaining ground. Two gunners belonging to the Bourse battery are suspected of being concerned with the revolutionaries. , The gun incident is shrouded in Imystery. Nicholas Hall was filled with the diplomatic, and court dignitaries, none of whom was hurt. It has transpired in the case of the shot which was fired at the - Czar that ineffectiveness is attributed to the weakness of the salut- ’ ing charge. London, January 20. The Russian Embassy in London states unofficially that it has heard an agitator fired a shot in the direction of the palace from across th>. river hoping to create a dis- • turbance. Some accounts of the affair al- ! lege that the missiles either killed or wounded one officer and some soldiers. Berlin, January 21. . The National Zeitung declares ' that officers alone are concerned in ( the Bourse cannon incident, wishing to intimate to the Czar that they are against reforms, Prinoe , Sergius’ fall having convinced the ’ aristocracy that their power is * 1 waning. The paper adds that such a plot is only hatchable within the ’ Czar’s entourage.