CONTINENTAL ITEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 15, 17 January 1914, Page 17

CONTINENTAL ITEMS.

V". ,"' ". * 7."."...."' "'; .... WOMAN ACQUITTED OF I . -%-, MURDER. .'■-.;.{ "The' Seine As_zes on . November -■ 20th acquitted of murder lime. , Suzanne Poekes, whose husband, a Paris business man, was found dead iv bed in his homo there last June, with five bullets in his body and one bullet iv his head. The defence claimed that the woman lovelier husband anil that there was no motive for desirlug his death. Iv explaining the number of wounds in the body, the woman said that Poekes had attempted to commit suicide, and had shot himself in the head, and that the five shots in his body were fired accidentally while she was struggling to take the revolver away from Poekes. Three days after the shooting, and while In the Saint Lazare • prison, Mme. Poekes gave birth to a child. AN EXECUTIONER ON STRIKE. Among the strange customs honoured in Persia is one which empowers an executioner, after performing his dread office, to claim the payment- from the parents or relatives of the victim-of a sum not exceeding GOO tomans, or £178. Rarely, however, is this sum forthcoming, accord- ! ing to the' "Impartial," a French newspaper published in Teheran, ..and, .;as a consequence, the murderer is ; often , Imprisoned for life on account of the refusal ■of the executioner to work for nothing. The sentence is, therefore, mechanically. commuted more often than not.. Recently, says the "Daily Citizen" Paris correspondent. Scyod Abd-el-G.'issein was sentenced to desirli for tbe murder of a merchant's wife. The father of the victim is too poor to pay the executioner's fee, and the merchant is averse to making, the payment on the ground that his wife was a bad woman. It is possible that the" sum necessary for the payment of the "-executioner will bo collected by subscription among the relatives and friends of the victim, otherwise the murder will escape beheading, and will linger out his days in prison. ."-'•• PARIS FAMILY'S TRAGIC FATE. An extraordinary tragic story of morphinoinania was revealed, says the Paris correspondent of the "Standard," when detectives arrested a painfully ,emaciated young man named Marcel Leroy in the act of stealing a piece of silk ..valued nt £8 from a shop in the.-Rue Reaumur.

As he was arrested Leroy, who was almost in a ■ state of nervous prostration, produced a hypodermic syringe, and. Implored his captors to let him have, another injection of morphine. "Only once," be begged, "just once:" lie continued; his agonised appeals all the way to the police station, where eventually the commissary managed to quiet him.' "'..'.'".'

- Leroy then confessed that he was. actuated only by an irresistible craving for morphine, iv order to procure money for the purchase of which he had had recourse to theft. He stated that lie had been addicted to morpbioc■ and' ■ cocaiae since .he was. a boy of fourteen, and latterly had been/ making injections a hundred times a day, every ten minutes or less. The whole of bis .body, _frout head to foot was simply, one mass of tiny scars. . - - - " ~h Xot merely content with indulging la the habit himself, he had eventually Implanted the same terrible craving." In his mother and sister,. with whom he lived. For a long time the women have been using drugs of every kind. The "girl, who is only twenty-two years of age; is actually dying from too frequent indulgence';'her only nurse is the mother, whom the fatal drug has already driven mad. * '

MYSTERIOUS MURDER.

There has -just concluded at -Liege, Belgium. a>-trial of international--import-ance. -A Russian refugee;. M. Bouialsky, was claimed for extradition as. a common criminal by the Russian Government." .This is the stol'y of his alleged crime.- In 1907 a Russian workman, named Prokhartchuk, whose guilt as an agcut-proyocateUr had been fully established, \v:is . killed' 'by a revolutionary organisation. Sentence of death was pronounced upon' him by the secret group among whom he worked, and whom he had often incited to excesses in order to trap them for the police. At this time M. Bouialsky, only 17 years Of -age, was a student' in the town where the murder happened, After sis years lie was charged with the murder, though' "there was no scrap of genuine evidence against him any more than in the case of' Beiliss, the Jew.

It was said that the agents of -the Russian police took a deposition from the lips of the dying Prokhartchuk, and jit was . alleged that heN pronounced a name which sounded like Bouialsky. Apart from this no evidence was forthcoming. 'The' revolutionary, organisation which accepts responsibility for the murder, stated' that under its rules no youth of. 17 would be permitted to.' undertake such a task v r and that Bouialsky is innocent. The accused man did not belong to their "organisation, but was merely a member of a- students' organisation for the winning of democratic liberties. After the triumph" of reaction In Russia, M. "Bouialsky.', like hundreds, of other reformers, > hadi to--flee from the country for political reasons. He settled in Belgium, where he married and is held in the highest esteem by all who know him. He denied even- the remotest knowledge of the Prokhartchuk murder, of which he had not heard until the extradition proceedings. . Although, the j trial has been, concluded, the decision stands postponed. . .7 •■ .7

SANE DIPLOMAT SENT TO I MADHOUSE. ■:•.'. t

A distinguished member of the Russiadiplomatic corps, M. Pctroff, the new councillor of the legation at ■ Bucharest, was the victim in the last week la November- of nu amazing adventure at the hands of .Russian railway officials. Petroff was going to St. Petersburg to receive bis official instructions, and while the train stopped at Klin, between Moscow and Twer, he jumped! out to buy a paper. Before he could. return .the train started,' and the diplomat had to junip ou a baggage van." A guard tried to push" him off, but Petroff resisted, and went through; the train *to a third-class compartment. He had been there a few minutes, 'when a commissia, consisting of three guards, came up and asked him to pay a fine for jumping on the train while it was in motion. Petroff showed his diplomatic papers, which the commissia threw on the floor. At the next station, Twer, Petroff was ;»rreste<L He protested and was finally allowed to send a dispatch to the Chief of the Foreign Office at St. Petersburg. He wrote the telegram iv French, and this aroused the suspicion of one gendarme, who said the diplomat was unquestionably mad... _r Other officials agreed, and Petroff was hurried to an asylum, where he remained several days until he was examined and fonnd perfectly sane. -Ho wiisthea allowed to go to St. Petersburg, where" he will appear before the Czar to. demand redress* Sazonoff, the Chief of ;the Foreign Office, has sent a protest to the Railway Minister because the train guards would uot heed Petioff's diplomatic papers. ....J' - -