The student riots in Moscow have produced an assassina- tion.
The general responsibility for order in the cities rests, of course, with the Minister of the Interior, and M. Sipiaguine, the murdered Minister, had shown himself 'particularly severe against the students, declaring that a Government which yields is a lost Government. One of the students in Kieff, who bad been condemned to the ranks but pardoned, attributed his sentence to the Minister, and on Tuesday stepped up to the carriage of M. Sipiaguine as he drove up to attend a Com- mittee of the Cabinet. Wearing an officer's uniform, the young man, whose real name is as yet unknown, pre- sented a letter from the Grand Duke Sergius, and as the Minister stooped to receive it fired two bullets into his body. He died within the hour. The assassin made no attempt to escape, but quietly explained the facts, adding that he had fulfilled his vow. The crime is, of course, indefensible, but there is no doubt that the severity of the Administration and the entire absence of any appeal even to the Emperor have the effect of driving the culti- • vated to despair. Russia is, consequently, lost in a vicious circle. The young see no hope except in terrorising the great, and the great feel that it would be shameful as well as im- politic to yield to terror. It is just to remember that though the students are many of them Revolutionists, their steady demand at present is for trial before punishment.
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