AMAZING STORY j OF RASPUTIN.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16148, 28 February 1918, Page 9

AMAZING STORY j OF RASPUTIN.

0 THE "BLACK MONK OF ] RUSSIA." t f (BY THE COUNTESS RADZIWILL.) e ■ a New Zealand Rights Specially Scoured c by "The Press." ® c CHAPTER VII. (Continued.) i THE CHARACTER OF RASPUTIN'S ASSOCIATES. j 1 If we consider who were the people at I the side of the "Prophet," and who in- j gpired all his actions as well as his ] utterances, we find police agents, ad- 1 venturers "who had been sometimes in 1 prison, and sometimes in exile; fane- < tionaries eager to obtain some fat sine- * cure in which they might do nothing t and earn a great deal; stock exchange -t speculators of doubtful morality and i still more doubtful honesty; women of * low character and army purveyors, * mixed up with innumerable spies. Most of.thpse last -were in the German ser- c rice, and were -working for all they -were i worth to bring about some palace conspiracy or some popular movement) 3 capable of removing from, his throne the | Czar. The Emperor, of course, knew! j nothing of all this; the Empress even . less. There was no one to tell them the truth, and they would have been more surprised than anyone else had they suspected the ocean of lies which had been told concerning themselves, and concerning the kindness with which they had-treated a man whom they considered as being half saint and half mad, but j of whom they had never thought in 1 their wildest dreams of maTsinsc their - chief adviser. In this extraordinary history there is also another point which must be no- , ticed. When tho first deceptions produced by the disasters of the beginning of the campaign had thrown public opinion into a state of mind which was bordering well nigh upon despair, and before it had had time to recover from the shock of' the fall of "Warsaw and the-]ine of fortresses upon which they had relied to protect the Western frontier, people had begun to seek for the cause of the great disillusionment they* had been called upon to experience. One had very,, quickly discovered, partly through the revelations that had been made in the Duma, that the real reason for all the sad things which hadi hapri pened lay in the systematic plundering I i of tfio public exchequer, that had been [ going on for such a lone time, and) which even the experiences of the Japanese war had not cured. When the • fierce battlo against Germany began in i grim earnest the first thought of the iimperor had been to try to put an end to mese depreciations tiiat Had compro- ;>■>, inuecl mc prestige and the good name |t of ttusiia aoroau as well at> at home. Or»t seventy waa shown to jUie many ]v" 'OTenvurers who had enriched tneinjjf dc.Tca at Jiia expense of the nation. £ „ iIISLP Oi>' THE ALLltiiS. | When it Had come to the fabrication j, of liio necessary ammunition and ru- / quired by tne army, then tno iielp of £ ulissia's Alues — and France— 1 natt been sougnt. 'inanks to tho ofl lQ rta ox tiieso two Powers, someutung ; Use oraer was re-estaoiisneu in tne vast, uaewne of me War uxneo. labriw«ou oT hnous ox a size tuat couiu'noo i It any gun waa stopped. ihe army s' at tne iront got ciouies and lood, or £ waicn it had ucen m want at tne ueguming or the campaign. Ainmuuif was dispatcncu were- it was i-c----f quired, anu not in the contrary directs ron » as often had been tho case beg' ■ j® re \ 'i'he Allies helped Russia to the of their ability, and Russia, at I £ 'east the sane and part ot KusI I , an society, feit grateful to them lor I their co-operation in the work of their I « defence against a foe which it |» ad: become to defeat s>o v r~® rou fihly that civilisation could no j r a „.? er x en dangered by its existence &_• and activity. Innut3 ut who surrounded Ras■t J* m a "d wtU whom ho was working | *K- O t, n °o Srateful for the labour of love I r rea l, Britain and France had i „ hegan to complain of 1 L elpm x. Interference of foreign f riw j the details of the Ru&f Some went even coming Ts say that Ru ssia was beI DlunWor an ® n S ,,sh colony. AH the 1/ thei* ers » a 'l tbe thieves who had had 1 DewLi^^ 11 for 50 man y months, I havfl \ ey wo "ld no longer I opportunities which thev had I add 10 their 311 means in their discredit the sovereign -whose they had found in tbfir way RhoM^ 00 i - P r °-^ cri iians of in 3S ' there existed but too many abd„t Country » »> 311 effort to bring WonM t pea ? e ' shame of -which t jj«W have been quit 0 indifferent to i OPPOSITION TO RASPUTIN. T J? aa on ° fe el surprised if, in the tSr-fF* P° siti ? n - an intense .- leeimg of disgust took hold of real . (Copyright, J3i7, by the Public Ledcer ff' Company, U.S.A.) L Copyright by the Sunday iunea li«Tfipaper Co, Ltd., Sydney.)

patriots, and made them contemplate seriously tho possibility of trying ~t least to unmask Rasputin and his crew, and bring to th© cars of tho Czar all the different rumours which were jn circulation concerning tho "Prophet, and what was going on around him. Men of experience and of weight seriously thought how this could be done. They made no secret of the fact, uniorinnately for themselves, as well as lor ( the success of their plans. "What- was going on very soon came to tho knowledge of Manussewitsch Maniuloff, and made him more frantic than he had ever been to overthrow what ho called ( "foreign influences" in Russia. He s applied himself with renewed energy to j bring about, by fair means or foul, tho conclusion of a peace on which depend- , ed his whole future destiny. And he might perhaps have succccded » circumstances had not turned against ] him and put an ond to his machinations at least for a time. i THE FALL OF STURMER. i Sturmer was but a tool in the hands ' of this artful, clever private secretary whom he had been persuaded, or rather > compelled, to ta.ke. Manussewitsch 1 Maniuloff had managed to get hold of j him and to keep him securely bound to J his own policy. He had been the man 1 who had contrived to put him into the i position, of authority which he enjoyed, < and Sturmer, whatever may have been his other defects, had a grateful ■ Besides, Maniuloff amused him, and' took an immense amount of trouble oft ' his hands. He could rely on his never ( doing anything stupid, even when he > did something very dishonest. Sturmer . was absorbed in great political combina-, tions, and was looking toward a long term of office. He felt absolutely safe in the situation which he occupied, where at any moment he liked ho could speak with the Czar and explain to him . what he thought to bo the most ad- , vantageous in the interests of his narty, or the events of the day as they folJcwed in quick succession. I Alas for this security! An unexpected incident was to destroy it in the most ruthless manner. Rasputin, together with Maniuloff, went too far in the system of blackmailing which they had been practising with such skill ' for so many fong months. For once they found their master in the person of one of the directors of a large banking establishment in Petrograd, who, upon being threatened with all kinds of unpleasantnesses unless he consented to 1 pay a large sum of money, did not protest, as others had done before-him in similar cases, but gavo it immediately, < first having taken tho numbers of the banknotes which he had handed over to Maniuloff. He went with these numbers to the military authorities and lodged with them a'formal complaint against tho blackmailers. The result* was as immediate as it was unexpected.The General Staff had been waiting a long time for just such an opportunity to proceed against Rasnutin and the mombers of his crew. That very samo night, in obedience to orders received from the military commander of Petrograd, Manussewitsch ManiulofFs house was searched from top to bottom, and he himself conveyed to prison without even having been allowed to acquaint his chief, Sturmer, with what had happened to him. (To he continued to-morrow.)