The Russian revolutionaries have begun to fulfil their threat of
carrying on their " war" with the dynasty by the bullet, the knife, and the hand-grenade filled with lyddite. Their first victim has been the Grand Duke Sergius, the uncle of the Czar, and commander of all, troops in and round Moscow. This Prince was selected because he was the leader of the reactionary party ; because, as brother-in-law of the Czarina, whose sister was his wife, he had a special personal influence with the Czar; and because he had shown himself as Governor-General of Moscow unusually despotic and cruel. On Friday week the Grand Duke was driving just beyond the gate of the Kremlin, either to a bath-house or to a house of his own, when at a sharp turn of the street his carriage, usually driven at high speed, was checked by a sleigh purposely driven across the road. In the momentary pause a man, whose name is still unknown, dressed as a workman, stepped forward and flung a bomb under the carriage, which in its explosion shattered the Grand Duke to pieces and mortally wounded his coachman. The assassin, who though only slightly wounded was dazed by the explosion, was almost immediately arrested. The only explanation he will give is that he acted by order to rid the world of a tyrant. It is believed that the Grand Duke had been warned of his sentence, and that although his wife, the Princess Elizabeth of Hesse, a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, is popular with all classes, the " sentence " would have been carried out even had she also been seated in the carriage.
