26 MAY 1894, Page 1

The St. Petersburg correspondent of the Times appears to believe

that a really formidable conspiracy to assassinate the Czar has recently been discovered. His Majesty is about to visit Smolensk to preside at some military mancenvres, and it is said that the house he would have occupied, and a church close to it, were found to be undermined. The conspirators in- cluded some engineers, of whom one shot himself on arrest, and a number of employes on the Orel-Vitebsk Railway, in which so many rich Russians invest their money. It is not known how the plot was betrayed, but information was obtained when the sons of the late General Andreieffs were arrested. As usual in Russia, the active Nihilists come from the educated, and as usual also, some one betrays them. It is hardly possible to imagine a more ghastly position than that of the Czar, thus threatened by men of whom he knows nothing, but who lay scientific plots for his destruction months in advance. One can hardly wonder if he grows morbidly suspicions, or if those who protect him arrest almost at random. Anybody apparently may be intending or plotting, if he gets a chance, to blow up the Czar.