CURIOUS RUSSIAN TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13453, 1 June 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

CURIOUS RUSSIAN TRAGEDY.

* ■ :•■;■•■■■.■:■ > '.i; A tou-.vg woman named Dorpfieff, who had! been imprisoned in the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress, St. ' Petersburg, for six months without trial, committed suicide by strangling; herself with her hair. ■ She tied her hair round her neck, and, fastening the end of the plait to the foot of the bed, leaned back till death released her. She was a young married woman, barely ' 22 years of age, who came to St. Petersburg with her husband in the spring of last. year. They disappeared after the successful attack made by the social revolutionaries at tiie corner of the Catherine Canal on a carriage conveying several thousand pounds from tin* port of St. Petersburg to the branch treasury in Kasuateheiskayastreet in October last year. .When the police made a descent on their apartment they found the doors locked, and had to force their way in. A few men were left in permanent ambush, and when, two days later, the husband returned alone, ho was arrested. Two days later he was executed in accordance with the verdict of a field court-martial. The woman Dorofieff was arrested on the! same premises the day after her husband had fallen into the hands of the police. I The news of her husband's death, it is said, I was only conveyed to her on the eve of her' ; suicide. " il She was buried secretly at night time in ' the Preobajensky cemetery, where are the) graves of many of those" who fell during;'' the shooting on "Red Sunday." Who she; was and who her husband was remains a:' mystery. Those who knew her during her stay. in St. Petersburg describe her as an exceptionally beautiful and attractive woman ofr superior intelligence and education. I