TROUBLE IN RUSSIA

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 128, 10 June 1901, Page 1

TROUBLE IN RUSSIA

St. Petersburg, May 1

Disturbances among the Bussian university students have by no means ended. The theological schools of Biasan, Irkutsk and Kieff have been the scene of extraordinary demonstrations against Pobyedonostseff, the head of the Synod which ex-communicated Tolstoi.

During a lecture on church history at Biasan a student cried out, “ Hurrah for Tolstoi! ” and the young priests jumped to their feet and cheered wildly. The professor vainly tried to quell the disturbance. ~ Noxt day the ringleaders were ordered off to monasteries for sis-'months’ confinement as a penance.

In- Irkutsk theological students were discovered reading Socialist tracts and in correspondence with Socialist leaders in Poland.

In Kieff, the Metropolitan has been obliged to dismiss several prominent students from the theological seminary on the ground that they would not bo safe leaders for the people were they consecrated as priests. Their companions sent a strongly-worded letter of remonstrance, declaring that they all felt and thought alike. ' This ferment among the divinity students, of whom there are 40,000 in Eussia, shows how’ deep the existing dissatisfaction goes, and how it has invaded circles hitherto noted for their extreme apathy.

Paris, May 1,

A protest against the sanguinary repression of the Socialistic university students and workingmen in Russia who demand freedom, and signed by 300 Russian professors, artists, authors, and physicians representing the best thought in the Czar’s realm, was recently sent to the European press “in the hopo that the civilized world’s indignation would avenge the hideous war against progress.’ This appeal lias stirred Franco greatly. In every city and town meetings are being held to denounce “Russia’s barbarous despotism.” In Paris these meetings occur daily, often gathering more than ten thousand persons. To-day an open letter, signed by French names universally famous, was published in the papers, warning the Czar that the Socialistic development was resistless because it was reasonable ; that it couldn’t bo stopped by the murder of a few hundred generous souls who were merely demanding their rights; that unless the officials guilty of tho recent outrages were severely punished the Czar himself must bo denounced as a cowardly, though crowned, assassin.