The Bulgarian Government has at last brought Major Panitza and
his fourteen companions before a court-martial. The charges substantially are that they accepted bribes from Russian agents to assassinate or kidnap Prince Ferdinand and M. Stambouloff, and organise a mutiny in favour of Russia. The boldness of the language used in the indictment is remarkable; but the newspaper correspondents seem inclined to accept an indictment as evidence. That has not yet been produced, and as the intercepted correspondence relied on was partly in cipher—the incriminating words being quoted from a code of signals—proof will not be easy to obtain. The Bul- garian Government, however, has clearly thrown away the scabbard, and intends to prove all its charges if it can. It demands the death of the leading prisoners, but on the face of its charges too many are implicated to allow of the extreme sentence. We note with regret that in Bulgaria, as in Servia, money seems irresistibly tempting, even to other- wise honourable men.
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