SECRETS OF RASPUTIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20762, 3 January 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

SECRETS OF RASPUTIN.

SHIRT AS A TALISMAN. ~ ■ SUPPOSED POWER OF MAGHC. ASTOUNDING REVELATIONS. While Rasputin's body, taken from tha j: river Neva, was undergoing a post-mortem examination in a wayside building between Petrograd and Tsarskoe Selo, during the. night,, the Tsarina arrived from Tsarskoo Selo and demanded that the body should be handed over to her. The Tsarina did not then get Rasputin's body, but she took away his clothes. Rasputin, when he was killed, was wearing a blue shirt embroidered with yellow cornflowers, which the Tsarina had given him. Two days afterwards, when a small periodical operation was being performed on the Tsarevitch's knee, the surgeon noticed Rasputin's blue shirt under the operating table. astounding disclosures are inarle by Sir Samuel Hoarc, Air Minister in the late Conservative Government, who was chief of tho British secret service mission in Petrograd for a year {rem March, 1916, until the eve of the Russian - revolution. They appear in the book, " The Fourth Seal," recently published in London.

Sir Samuel does not indicate his view as to what Rasputin's shirt was doing under the operating table, but the obvi- ' ous conclusion, bearing in mind the Tsarina's superstitious belief in the "holy man," is that she put his shirt there as a talisman, and supposed that it would have the power of " magic." " Scandals Beyond Belief." ' Such was the Tsarina, who twisted the Tsar round her little finger. As for the Russian Church, Sir Samuel Hoare sayg in one of the letters he reprint*:— " The scandals that have taken place arc almost beyond belief. Bishops have been appointed by the help of the ' Dark Forces ' who could not even read or write. After Rasputin's, the most active personality is that, of Pitirim, the Metropolitan of Petrograd, a notorious intriguer and jobber," When the jobber was attacked in the Duma, the Tsar issued a rescript " thanking the Metropolitan for his services." When Princess Vassilshchikova wrote to the Tsarina imploring her to get rid of Rasputin, she received an order " from the Ministry of the Court that she and her husband should leave Petrograd in disgrace.'" Sir Samuel Hoare, in letters to the War Office, faithfully painted the rotten state of the Tsar's Government, and predicted that things would go from bad to worse. Just after this came the first explosion—the murder of Rasputin, tho Tsarina's " holy man," and the figurehead of the " Dark Forces." Murder of Easputin. Sir Samuel gives many details of the murder of Rasputin, which lie gathered on the spot and sent in his letters to the War Office. Rasputin's real name was, he • says, Gregory Efemich Novikh. " Rasputin " was a nickname, meaning " The Rake," which he gained by " his excesses in his village." Sir Samuel was a member of a committee when an official entered with thn news that Rasputin had been murdered that morning in one of the most aristocratic houses in Petrograd by the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and Prince Yusupov. Afterwards it was said that the Grand Duke drew the lot to kill Rasputin, but That Prince Yufupov undertook the duty. The house in which the tragedy occurred was Prince Yusupov's. A closed motor had driven up there; police had heard shots, but had accepted the story that it was merely the shooting of a dog. Then Rasputin's golosh was found; it led to a search of the river and the discovery of Ilis frozen body. It was taken to an almshouse, where the police did their best to obstruct the post-mortem examination. During the examination two women arrived and asked for the body. Refused this, they were allowed to take away tho clothes. Sir Samuel. Hoare adds that these two ladies " were the Empress and her lady-in-waiting." He also discloses that: " The fact that I was known to have been in relation with Purishkevich . . . gave a ready excuse to the anti-British clique of reactionaries to father the plot and even (ho murder on me and my staff. . . . Though the story seemed incredible to the point of childishness, the British Ambassador had solemnly to contradict it to tb.c Emperor at his next audience." " National Deliverance." The news of Rasputin's rhurder was greeted in Russia as a national deliverance, and Sir Samuel adds: — " All classes speak and act as >if sons great weight had been taken from their shoulders. Many say it is better than the greatest Russian victory in the field. Nowhere will any regret be felt for tho crime except among those over whom Rasputin exercised a hypnotic influence, and the unscrupulous intriguers whom ho used for his own ends and rewarded with innumerable appointments in the Church and State. The scene in tho almshouse where, by the light of two small lamps, the surgeon began the post-mortem on Rasputin's body is described. Ho found three wounds, one in the back and two in tlie bead, all made by shots at close range. Sir Samuel says: " Whilst the examination was proceeding one of the gorodovois (policemen) announced that two ladies had come for the body. Sercd* and Kosorotov declared that this was impossible. A message then came back that they must give up the clothes. They did." Sir Samuel, the title of whose book is a phrase from Revelations, says: "To many, Rasputin was tho Beast of the Apocalypse." Yet Sir Samuel wonders whether, if Rasputin was "so wliollv and so coarsely wicked," he could have kept his hand on the wheel of State for so many years. Woman Dropped in Mine Alive. The tragic story i» told by Sir Samuel of the slaughter of the Grand Duchess Serge, second daughter of Princess Alice, who, tho day after the murder of tho Tsar and his family, was flung alive down a mine shaft at Alapaevsk, near Perm — her eyes bound first —and then had three or four princes flung after her, followed by several grenades, which caused a deafening explosion. Her last / words were, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." A peasant heard her. Three months later Kolchak took possession of Alapaevsk. The bodies had been secretly rescued, and Kolchak. retreating, took them with him, in their coffins. The coffins went right across Siberia to Harbin, where the Grand Duchess' coffin was opened and the black habit of the Basilian Order was put on her. Then the coffins went from Ilarbin to Pekiu. "By this time," says Sir Samuel, " the Grand Duchess' sister, Lady Milford Haven, had heard of this strange journey." She determined to have her sister's body taken to Jerusalem. A British cruiser look it from Shanghai to Port Said, and thence it went to Jerusalem. " There." adds Sir Samuel, "it " ow rests, iw the Russian church on the Mount of Olives, almost on the site of Gelhsemane."