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Show POOR RUSSIA. ; If the object of throwing the bomb into the royal procession in Madrid was to kill a Russian Duke; it must have been thrown by a Russian or by a hired assassin, and either way it shows how unrelenting is the hate of the middle classes of Russia toward the nobility, and gives a new idea of the chaos that rules in Russia and through what probable violence that distressed country must pass before peace and order can be established and progress, begin. " For years and years a long procession of prisoners prison-ers has annually been sent in chains over the long trail to Siberia. Many of those prisoners were educated edu-cated and refined people and what they suffered no pen can. describe. But they left friends and relatives rela-tives at home, and steadily the wrath of these increased in-creased until it became a national hate. Through decade after decade the prayer cleaselessly arose, "How long, O, Lord! How long ?' And there seemed to be no answer. "Meanwhile the eyes of the nobility were blinded, no thought of the efficacy of mercy or of justice tempered with mercy. So when the empire was torn with shame and sorrow and well-nigh made bankrupt by the war with Japan; when with the jest starvation and want began to stalk through the distressed empire and sailors and soldiers mutinied and the peasantry knew that tens of thousands of their relatives would never return; the long-smothered rebellion in their souls broke forth; when the great white Czar cowering cow-ering with fear at last promised to give the people' a Constitutional Government those nobles interposed, inter-posed, determined that it should not be. Xow through a path of blood the march of progress pro-gress has begun. There is no light in the sky and the conflagration conflagra-tion may be left to burn itself out by consuming the last trace of nobility and royalty in the empire, and the vengeance, it seems, follows the victims beyond the domains of the empire, and startles nations that are in no way involved in Russia's troubles. The prospect for Russia is most deplorable and discouraging and if there is any light in her skies or hope in the hearts of her people, no glimpse of either comes to the world outside. . |