We have to record another murder of a statesman, but
not this time on political grounds. M. Delyannis, Premier of Greece, and for forty-three years the most conspicuous politician in the kingdom, had recently passed an Act directed against gambling establishments. Their proprietors, threatened with ruin, have grown furious, and a criminal named Gherakaris, who had been sentenced for the murder of his wife, and was employed on his release in a gambling- house, resolved to kill the promoter of the Act. He met him on June 13th at the door of the Chamber, and as M. Delyannis alighted from his carriage, stabbed him in the abdomen. lie was immediately arrested, and thereby saved from lynching. The Premier, who was eighty-three, lingered only for an hour and a half, and all Greece has been thrown into mourning. The crime is not of great international import- ance, but it is a grievous misfortune for Greece, and it increases that sense of insecurity among Kings and prominent politicians which has now such an injurious effect upon their calm. They can do nothing without stimulating some criminal, or crypto-lunatic, or Anarchist to threaten their lives. The dread of assassination has become a factor in politics, and is, of course, a most injurious one. One can hardly expect calm thought from a man while he is fencing, and sees that there is no button on his adversary's steel.
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