[19]. Rozòvsky was executed early in the year 1880.
[20]. The object of the treaty was to ensure the trial of the case in the ordinary criminal courts. The Russian Government’s practice, in dealing with “politicals,” was to subject them to martial law, and so obtain heavier sentences; e.g. capital punishment, which is not inflicted at all under the Russian civil code.—Trans.
[21]. Degàiev, a captain of artillery, was a prominent member of the “Naròdnaia Vòlya.” Arrested and imprisoned in the beginning of 1880, he soon turned informer, and betrayed many of his former comrades. By this he not only gained his liberty, but also won the confidence of the notorious persecutor of revolutionists, Colonel Soudyèhkin, commander of the Petersburg Ochrana (a body of secret police). Pangs of[of] conscience, or fear of the vengeance of the revolutionists, caused him to make a full confession to them in 1883, and as amends for his treachery he offered to stand by them in an attempt to assassinate Soudyèhkin. The latter was difficult to entrap, being extraordinarily clever and wary; owing to which qualities he had done more harm to the revolutionists than anybody else. Degàiev’s proposal was accepted; and in the winter of 1883 he managed to decoy Soudyèhkin, under pretext of important business, into his house, where two revolutionists were lying in wait, and shot Soudyèhkin down. They were both caught, condemned to penal servitude for life, and imprisoned in the Schlüsselburg fortress. Degàiev escaped to foreign parts, and afterwards disappeared.
[23]. The letters of the alphabet being arranged in certain groups, e.g.:—
a b c d e f
g h i k l m
n o p r s t
u v w x y z,
words are made up by knocking so many times on the wall for each letter. First the horizontal line in which the letter stands is counted, and then its number in the line. For example, to make the word “you” one would knock as follows: four taps, a short pause, five taps, a longer pause; three taps, a short pause, two taps, longer pause; four taps, short pause, one tap. The taps are not only heard in the neighbouring cell, but sometimes in far-distant ones if they have a common wall.