Last evening, between five and six o'clock, news was received, by telegraph, "the death of Alexander LI., Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, The telegram was received by the commander of the Russian despatch-vessel Plastoun, and it was to the effect that at two o'clock on Sunday, the 13th inst., the Czar_was returning from a review held at St. Petersburg, when he was dangerously wounded by a bursting shell which was thrown at him, and that he died at 8.35 p.m. the same day.
The whole community were soon acquainted with the sad news that had been received, by the Plastoun, immediately on receipt of the telegram, displaying the national flag at half-mast on the main, and firing thirty-one minute guns, "topping" the yards meanwhile, The Russian ensign was also displayed at half-mast on H.M.'s corvettes Curagoa and Pegasus, and the U.S. gunboat Palos, which vessels also "topped" their yards, and twenty-one minute guns were fired from the Curagoa, on those ceasing from the Plastoun, Later in the on the Plastoun for the repose of th of the deceased monarch, and other marks of respect wore paid to his memory.
In all, five attempts have been made to take the life of the late Czar. The Particulars of two will be found below, and the three others are so recent as to be well-known to our readers, namely, on the 14th of April, 1879, he was shot at in St. Petersburg; the attempt to blow up the train by which he was supposed to be travelling on the Moscow-Koursk Railway; and the attempt to kill him by an explosion at the Winter Palace in February of last year.
Since' the days of Peter the Great, elevon sovereigns, not including Alexander "LI, have sat upon the Russian throne. Of these only five reigned over twenty years, and only one other for ten years. Alexander LI reigned for twenty-six years, and his death at the hand of an assassin makes him the third Russian Emperor who has been murdered by his subjects in the space of 150 years, while one other Emperor during that time was deposed and died in prison.
Alexander LI. (Nicolaivitch), Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, who succeeded, on the death of his father, Nicholas March 2, 1855, was born April 29, 1818, in the. reign of his uncle, Alexander I. The first seven years of his life were hardly completed when the death of Alexander.I. and the renunciation of his rights by his brother Constantine, led So the elevation of his father Nicholas to the throne, to which the young prince became heir apparent. For a moment; however, his own destiny and that of his house trembled in the balance, as a widely spread defection, which was only quenched by torrents of blood, exhibited itself in the garrisons of the capital. The resolute spirit of Nicholas I. overawed the rebellious regiments, and from that day, Dec. 26, 1835, he ruled over a nation' of The whole tenor of the young prince's was altered, the gent ay of his mother, the daughter of Frederick ILL, of Prussia, having been changed for the discipline of military governors and tutors. The substitution of the stern regimen of the barrack-room for the more genial influence of domestic life proved so irksome to the future Czar that he enfranchised himself from it at the earliest possible period, and sought in travel and the society of the female members of his mother's family the softening influences of intellectual culture and taste. This predilection for civil rather than military life was opposed to all the traditions of the Russian Court.
Gloomy forebodings prevailed respecting the prospects of the Crown Prince, whose succession it was feared might possibly be disputed by the old Muscovite party. Their half-barbarous, half-soldierly predilections found a more suitable object in Nicholas's second son, the Grand Duke Constantine, and such an amount of antipathy and distrust grew between the two brothers in consequence of the preference as to becrime the subject of veneral remark, and even of quarrels, Upon one occasion Constantine, who was Admiral of the Fleet, carried his animosity so far as to put his brother under arrest: an act of tyranny which Nicholas L. reproved by subjecting Constantine to the same privi ment. Nicholas I. looked with so much apprehension at the growing differences between his two children that in 1843, upon the birth of Alexander's first child, he. required Constantine to take an oath of fidelity to the heir to the throne.
ain, in his last illness, he summoned his children to his dying couch, and on making over to Alexander the Imperial throne, obtained from both a solemn promise to remain for ever closely united; in order to secure the peace and happiness of their common country. The Czarewitch, on this occasion, in the presence of the Ministers and the Estates, declared his intention to enter on the government of the Empire, od was immediately proclaimed Emperor as Alexander I. The same afternoon the Estates of the Empire and the military stationed in St. Petersburg, did homage and at a Council held under the presidency of the new Emperor, it was resolved not in any way to interrupt the course of the war with the Allied Powers in which Russia was engaged. Alexander's first act was to issue a manifesto to the nation "notifying his accession, and declaring, in general terms, his intention to uphold the glory of the Empire as it had been upheld by Peter, Catherine, Alexander and Nicholas I. He at the same time summoned Gen. Rudiger from Warsaw, and conferred upon him the command of the Tmperial Guards, until then held by himself; renewed the powers of his plenipo-tentiones at Vienna, and through them announced his adherence to the declarations made by Prince Gortschakoff on behalf of his late father. On-the return of peace, one of the first steps taken by Alexander IL in the direction of reform, was the reduction of the army to the lowest Timits compatible with the dignity and safety of the Empire. Vigorous efforts were made to place the national finances on a firmer basis, and to promote commercial prosperity. But the greatest reform of all was his emancipation of 23,000,000 human beings from the bondage of serfdom, and an Imperial ukase proclaimed the liberation of the serfs, on certain conditions, 3rd March, 1861. A period of two years was assigned for the settlement of terms, with regard to the quantity of land to be ceded, and the rent, labour, or purchase-money to be paid for it. In Feb. 1864, the same boon was conferred upon the Polish serfs, with a view to weaken the influence of the Polish nobility, who owned the greater part of the land, and were consequently all-powerful, As regards education, great efforts were made by the peror to place the State colleges on level with the best educational institutions in Europe. A still more notable reform, however, was the inauguration of elective representative assemblies in the provinces. The first of these inet in 1865, and it was anticipated that this tentative measure would pave the way for the introduction of a National Representative Assembly, The principal war entered into of late years by Russia was that undertaken in Turkestan against the Ameer of Bokhara in Nov, 1866. After a resistance of a year and a half the Ameer was conquered, his army dispersed, and the city of Samarcand occupied" by the Russian troops (May, 1868). In March, 1867, the Czar sold the whole of Russian Atnerica to the United States for £1,400,000. While Paris was being besieged by the Germans, the Czar declared that he no longer considered himself bound by those provisions of the treaty of 1856 which limited his rights the Black Sea, This led to the Conference held in London at the commencement. of the year 1871, when the parties to the treaty consented to its modification in compliance with the wishes of the Czar. Gving to Berlin in Sept, 1872, the Czar had a celebrated interview with the Emperors of Germany and Austria, both of whom subsequently paid agreturn visit to St. Petersburg. In 1873, Khiva was conquered by the Russian troops under General Kauffmann, part of the territory was annexed to Russia, and the suzerainty of the Czar over the 'Ichanate was eatablished. he Czar paid a visit' to England, where he met with a hearty reception, in May, 1874, It was the constant policy of the Gzar to strengthen the influence of the Church of whic he was the head. The result was a persecution of all other religious body and especially of the Catholic Church, the bishops of that communion having be forbidden to hold any communication with the Holy See, Two attempts have been made on the Ozar's life: the first on April 16, 1866, when ho was fired at while entering his carriage at St. Petersburg. The pistol, however, was turned aside by a workman named Dimitri Korakosow, who as afterwards ennobled for the act." The second attempt was at Paris, Juno 6, 1867, by Berezowski, a Pole, who fired into the carriage in which the Czar was seated with his two sons and the Emperor Napoleon. Both sovereigns escaped wu hurt, but the horse of one of the equerries was wounded. The assassin was about to fire another shot, when the barrel of the pistol burst and rendered his hand power! The Emperor Alexander IL. married, April 28, 1841, Maria Alexandrovna, Princess of Hesse, by whom he had a large family. The eldest of the princes, Nicholas, the late Ozarewitch, born Sept. 20, 1843, died prematurely' at Nice in April, 1865; Alexander, the present Crown, Prince, born March '10, 1845, married Nov. 1866, the Princess Marie Sophia Frederique Dagmar, of Denmark, The Emperor's eldest daughter, the Grand Duchess Marie, was married to H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, Jan. 23, 1874.—Men of the Time, Since 1874, th principal events of his reign have Leen the war with Turkey, the steady extension of Russian influence in Central Asia, the negotiations and settlement of the Kaldja dispute with China, the death of the Ozariua last year, and the rapid development of power on the part of the Nihilist faction throughout the Empire. To the machinations of this organisation his tragic fate is doubtless to be attributed,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.