The penalties inflicted on Russian students and workmen for their
recent demonstrations in the streets have been even more widespread than we last week 'imagined. The Govern- ment has at last alluded to the movements in the Official Messenger of St. Petersburg, and declares them to have been distinctly revolutionary. It affirms that the students had opened relations with revolutionary societies, and had per- ceived that "an obvious means of furthering their objects was to organise street demonstrations,"—a very curious remark, intended, we fancy, as a menace. The Messenger admits that in Moscow alone ninety-five students have been sent to Eastern Siberia for periods of from two to five years, and five hundred and sixty-seven to terms of imprisonment, usually in Archangel, of from three to six months. Reading this announcement by the light of the news from St. Peters- burg, Kieff, Odessa, and other places, we should say that at least two thousand students have been imprisoned or banished to icy regions for a term of years. The Government, in fact, is fighting the educated class, and, as we pointed out last week, while the soldiers obey it must inevitably win.
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