The following cities have, according to the latest enumerations, more than 100,000 inhabitants: Petersburg (in 1869), 667,963; Moscow (1871), 601,969; Warsaw (in 1878), 336,703; Odessa (1873), 184,819; Kiev (1874), 127,251; Riga, 103,000; Kishinev, 102,427; Kharkov (1879), 101,175.

For religious and other statistics of the empire, see "Annual Cyclopædia" for 1877 and 1878. The budget for 1880, as published in January, showed a probable balance between revenue and expenditure, the totals in each case being estimated at 666,000,000 rubles. The

mal average yield of the various sources of revenue, and were regarded as sufficient completely to cover the outlay, notwithstanding the expenditure, which included the interest on the new loans, had increased by 38,000,000 rubles. Of the items of increased expenditure, the payment of interest for the state debts, after reckoning the reduction effected by the redemption of the former loans, required 15,000,000 more than in the previous year, while the war and naval budgets were increased by 11,000,000 rubles, and the estimates of the Ministry of the Interior by 2,000,000, the last addition being attributable to the reenforcement of the police. On the other side, the increase of revenue was produced chiefly by receipts on account of excise, customs, forests, and repayments by railway companies. It was computed that the additional revenue from this source would amount to about 30,000,000 rubles, and a further increase of 7,000,000 rubles was expected to accrue in small amounts from miscellaneous items.

The foreign commerce of Russia in 1877 and 1878 was as follows (value in rubles):

number of offices was 2,534; the number of dispatches, 5,761,731. The receipts of the telegraph-office (in 1878, 28,113,702 francs) showed in recent years a small annual surplus, which is, by imperial decree, always devoted to the extension of the telegraphic sys

tem.

There were indications that the principles of the Nihilists were spreading in the army; four officers in one regiment were arrested during the first week in January on a charge of disseminating revolutionary publications, copies of some of which were found at their lodgings. Two officers who had assisted eight political prisoners to escape were arrested, and special courts-martial were established in two districts where Nihilism was discovered in the regiments. A depository of revolutionary publications, with galvanic batteries, was discovered in Moscow on the 6th, and led to the revelation of a plot to blow up the Czar on his next journey to that city. A petty officer and seaman, having their sea-chests filled with revolutionary books and pamphlets, were arrested at Nicolaieff. Anxiety was increased by the disaffection of a number of superior officers, some of them high in command, and it appeared that a considerable proportion of those who had failed to obtain promotion and honors after the late war had espoused the revolutionary cause. A proclamation to Russian society was published by students of the high-schools, complaining of the oppressive measures which the Government had taken against them, and of the system of education which was imposed upon them. It charged the Government with giving the preference to the classical system as one which tended to keep the public in ignorance, dwarf their reasoning power, and incapacitate them for active life; demanded educational liberty and the right to enter the universities; and declared that, although society would do nothing for its authors, they would fight the great Moloch, called the Russian Government, to the end, even though the best of them might perish in the struggle. Another secret press was discovered at St. Petersburg, with type set for the third number of the new revolutionary paper, "Narodnaja Wolia," which was said to contain, among other things, a programme of the Executive Committee, proposing to overthrow the Government and transfer the reins of power to an assembly of organization. The press, and copies of another revolutionary journal, called " Tschorng Peredol" (the Black Distribution of Land), was discovered a few days afterward.

On the 17th of February, at seven o'clock in the evening, just as the imperial family were about to dine, a mine was exploded in the basement of the Winter Palace, immediately under the imperial guard-room, which was situated beneath the dining-room. The guardroom was blown up, ten soldiers were killed, and forty-five wounded. Fortunately, none of the imperial party had yet entered the dining

room, although the Czar and Prince Alexander, of Bulgaria, who had been conversing in the Czar's study, were about to enter it through one door, and the imperial Princesses were about going in through another door. The Empress was asleep in a remote part of the palace, and was not disturbed by the shock of the explosion. An examination of the premises showed that the mine was filled partly with dynamite aud partly with gun-cotton, and that the train was laid to a cellar in an inner court, where a battery, by which it was fired, was concealed among a store of fuel. Though the cellars were used by workmen, none of the regular workmen employed about the palace appeared to be implicated in the offense. The Czar was very much affected by the occurrence, so that, at one time, he almost, it is said, lost his self-command. When Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador, called to congratulate him on his escape, he remarked that he was indebted to Divine Providence, and that God, having mercifully delivered him twice, recently, from very imminent peril, he was content to trust his life for the future to his protecting hand. Congratulations on his escape were sent to the Czar by the heads of all the principal states. To a dispatch from President Grévy, of France, his Majesty replied: "I cordially thank you for the sentiments you express. The spirit of evil is unwearied, like Divine grace. I am glad to reckon on the sympathies of right-thinking men." On the Sunday after the attempt, the Czar visited the Paulowski military school, where he received an ovation from the students, whose cheering was taken up by the crowds assembled on the quay.

On the 24th of February a ukase was issued, in which the Czar, having declared his firm determination to put down the attempts to disturb order in Russia, appointed a Supreme Executive Commission to sit in the capital, of which General Count Loris-Melikoff was named as president, and the members of which were to be selected by him. The head of the Commission, whose duty it was made to watch over the safety of the Russian Empire, was invested with the rights of commander-inchief in St. Petersburg and the adjacent district, and further, with the direct control over all political trials held in the capital, the military district of St. Petersburg, and throughout the empire. All the local authorities, governors, governors-general, and town commanders, were placed under the jurisdiction of the chief of the Executive Commission, and all persons employed in the various departments were commanded to afford him their entire cooperation. The head of the Commission was given authority to adopt any measure which might appear to him desirable for the protection of order, and his orders were to be unconditionally obeyed. The office of the Provisional Governor-General of St. Petersburg, held hitherto by General Gourko, was abolished. The first