Mackey – Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry Vol. 1

THE NIHILISTS 219price on his head, and finally succeeded in obtaining hisextradition from Switzerland, no less than 20,000 francs beingpaid to the Zurich Prefect of Police, Pfenniger, who facilitatedthe extradition, which, according to all accounts, wasmore like an act of kidnapping . The Municipal Councilstrongly protested, and passed a resolution that evencommon criminals should not be given up to such .Governmentsas those of Russia and Turkey . Nechayeff was sentencedto twenty years' penal servitude in Siberia, but hewas too important a person to be trusted out of sight, andso he was confined in the most secure portion of the fortressPeter and Paul. For a time he was kept in chains fastenedto a metal rod, so that he could neither lie down, stand up,nor sit with any approach to ease . But even in prison henever lost an opportunity of making converts ; he receivedvisits from high officials, nay, the emperor himself "interviewed" him. Of course all these visits were paid with aview of sounding him about the forces and prospects of therevolutionary party, but he remained true to them ; and withwonderful self-abnegation preferred remaining in prison todelaying the killing of the Tsar, which delay would havebeen necessary had his friends undertaken his deliverance .In 1882 the friendly guards around him were arrested, andnothing more was ever heard of Nechayeff beyond the factthat he was cruelly beaten with rods in consequence of adispute with the inspector of the prison, and died shortlyafter . Some suppose that he committed suicide, others thathe was killed by the effects of the blows. He was keenlylamented by all the Nihilists, for all recognised his ability,his courage, and utter disregard of self .6 11 . Going among the People.-One of the earliest effectsof the newly-awakened enthusiasm for social and politicalfreedom was the eagerness with which young men, and,women too, went "among the people ." The sons anddaughters, not only of respectable, but of wealthy andaristocratic, families renounced the comforts and security ofhome, the love and esteem of their relatives, the advantagesof rank and position, to associate with the working classesand the peasantry, dressing, faring, and working like andwith,them, with the object of instilling into them ideas asto the rights of humanity and citizenship ; of expounding tothem the principles of Socialism and of the revolution . Thusin the winter of 1872, in a hovel near St . Petersburg, PrinceKrapotkine gathered round him a number of working-men ;Obuchoff, a rich Cossack, did the same on the banks of the