NEWS OF THE WEEK.
EUROPE was disturbed on Thursday by rumours of the
Czar's fatal illness, and of consequent trouble in St. Petersburg, so grave that the Guard, which numbers 60,000 men, had been placed under arms. The rumours, which were circulated by telegraph, arose partly from an attack of influenza under which the Czar suffered, and partly from a story, not yet confirmed or denied, that he had been agitated to illness by the sudden extinction of all the electric lights in Gatschina. His death at present would be a serious misfortune for Russia, and probably for the world, for the Cesarewitch, who is only twenty-one, is hardly as yet competent to exercise the terrible authority of the Russian throne, yet too old to allow of the creation of a Regency. The Russian Czardom, too, is so nearly an ecclesiastical office, or at least so interwoven with popular superstition, that no Regency could exercise its full powers, or exact the same unquestioning and willing obedience. The Russian throne is not based on the Army alone, but on the feeling of the millions of Russia that the Czar is God's natural vicegerent.
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