THE RUSSIAN EXILE.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 284, 4 June 1909, Page 5

THE RUSSIAN EXILE.

DR BORANOFF. | Lately arrived in New ZeaJa-nd is Dr Boranoff, not only a prominent, personage becauso he is a Russian exile, who escaped three times from imprisonment in Siberia, where he was incarcerated and suffered all the tortures heaped upon every political prisoner;, because of his opinions, but also because Dr Boranoff has just 1 completed a highly successful tour of England, delivering brilliant discourses of . his appalling experiences in Siberia. Dr Boranoff will appear for one night only in the Drill Hall, Dannevirke, on Tuesday next, June Bth. Dr Boranoff, who is a graduate in -science and medicine at the universities of St. Petersburg, Dorpat, . and Berlin, speaks English with a •■"beautiful grace .and fluency, and his dramatic and thrilling discourses are of absorbing interest. Dr Boranoff ■ whs first arrested and. sent to Siberia for being concerned in the production of a newspaper. There was no trial ; only a maximum of salt food, a minimum of water, and continual questioning about his • associates. Then came the lash, and Dr Boranoff showed the red cicatrices running down the spine. He rolled back his shirt cuff and revealed an arm into which deep furrows had eaten. "The chains," he said with simple directness. By night and day he was chained by his arms and legs to & barrow. Finding him unresponsive tp betray his friends, he goes on to explain, they tried another plan, the cruellest of all. He was ruthlessly chained to- the Avail and a- woman was brought in and stripped to the AA^aist. When she turned her face he knew her. She AA'as a friend of his, and they had apprehended her — poor gentle girl — on suspicion. They fastened her to the wall and on that bare back -the/Cossack* knout : . was. set to work. She implored him not to speak nor betray his friends," and her courage only kept him from doing so. She enjoined him not to speak. "It was brutal — terrible, beyond words," says Dr Boranoff. To-morrow morning the box plan Avill open at .Bartlett's. There is a special concession for ladies. Colleges and schools may also arrange for concessions.