DARING PRISON PLOT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13781, 20 June 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

DARING PRISON PLOT.

SCHOOLGIRL I? EVOLUTIONISTS •fifty FEET LEAP to death. Details were received by mail of a particularly daring prison ' plot at Minsk, which has been frustrated through the vigilance of the. detective police, and which partakes of the romantic from the fact that one of the prime movers was a young schoolgirl, who committed suicide in a peculiarly terrible fashion when the was discovered. Some time ago it was\oticed that a girl named Vera Kholmsky, a pupil at the local high school, was in frequent communication with certain political suspects. She also made fairly frequent visits to State prisoners in the Minsk prison, one. of those visited by her being a man named Shut, who, in turn, was observed to be on intimate terms with a prison inspector. Although this inspector had been in the service for 20 years without suspicion being once attached to him, the detectives taking the facts mentioned into consideration, found in them tl}e first links of a remarkable chain of evidence, which they eventually completed. On the night of April 14 the inspector in question was searched as he came off duty, and on him was found a bundle of letters, several of them in cypher. One was addressed' to Vera Kholmsky, and all wore handed over to the police for examination, They proved to contain the fullest particulars of an attack which had been planned on the prison. Briefly, it was as follows :—.

On a night, subsequently to be arranged, the outer.gateway of the prison was to be blown up with dynamite, and simultaneously the prisoners were to mutinv in a body, breaking out of their cells and murdering their warders. This done, all the prisoners were to assemble at a stated spot, where they vould find everything prepared for their escape. It was obvious that this plan had been discovered at the eleventh hour, for. within a few days many of: the convicts in prison would have been en route to Siberia, of which fact they were quite aware. Following on the disclosures, the police proceeded to the home of Vera Kholmsky, whose father is an official of the LibauRomna Railway, and lives in a flat on the fifth floor of an enormous building. As they had some reason to believe that the dynamite to bo used in carrying out the plot was in the girl's keeping, the officers endeavoured to enter her bedroom without making any noise. Their visit was made at night, and they succeeded in getting to the door of her room without a light. Opening the door, however, they found the room empty and the window Vide open. The girl, hearing their approach despite their precautions, had hurled herself from the window, and. falling over fifty feet, on to a stone pavement, had been instantly killed.