THE “ABODE OF LOVE.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7029, 18 January 1910, Page 3

THE “ABODE OF LOVE.”

FURTHER EXPOSURES OF SMYTHPIGGOTT. "SISTER RUTH'S” STORY. jfEOir ODE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. LONDON, December 3. The unfrocking of the creature. SmythPiggott by the Bishop of Bath aud "Wells was. every decent man and woman hoped the beginning of the end of the "Abode of Love.” But months have passed and the Agapemone at Spaxton, in Somerset, still exists, and SmythPiggott remains at 'liberty. He is at present in Norway, it is said, and, if certain further charges brought against him by Mr Horatio Bottoxnie.y, in "John Bull/' are true, he will be wise to stay there. • Many reasonable newspapers have called Piggott everything but a gentleman, but "John Bull’ goes further then any. Other journals have called Piggott a "foul beast,” a "hideous blasphemer," "a vile seducer of foolish women,” and similar opprobrious names, but Mr Bottomley’s journal deliberately accuses Piggott of crape and of seduction which renders him liable to the severe penalties of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. . . .

Hitherto the difficulties the authorities have been faced with in any attempt to suppress Piggott by legal means was that the deluded women who administered to his desires aud provided him ; with money, did so of their own free will, and were of an age which did not make Piggott’s intercourse with, them a criminal offence. Now Mr Bottomley says he ha,3 reliable evidence that Piggott has committed the detestable crime of rape, and hints that ho has also evidence that Piggott "has not held sacred those of tender years.” In the course of his latest exposure of Piggott. Mr Bottomley tells the story .of Ruth Reece*—the "Sister Ruth” who gave birth to the two children "Glory” and "Power.” The story, taken from the lips of the woman herself, is an amazing one, with an amazing finale. Ruth Reece, who was recently deposed from her position as chief of Piggott’s "wives” at Spaxton in favour of a girl of seventeen, iran away from the Abode, and took up her temporary residence at a hamlet near Bridgewater. There a "John Bull” interviewer found her, and extracted from her the story of her connection with Piggott. -■ It is an astounding recital, but 1 the most astonishing part of it is that at its conclusion Ruth Reece announced her intention of voluntarily returning to the "Abode of Love.” She was offered assistance to take her to relatives or sympathising friends, and urged to break for ever her association with her betrayer. But in vain. Sadly, but none the less resolutely, she: reiterated her decision, saying: "I must go back to the 'Master/ I feel'l cannot live without him—and yet I fear and detest him!”/ Apparently Piggott exercises over his victims the same sort of fascination that "the Boss Bigamist” Witzhoff did over his. But Piggott has been far cleverer than that unscrupulous matrimonial pluralist. Witzhoff was reduced to the necessity of contracting bogus marriages in order to fleece his victims, and. so brought himself under the pale of th© law. Piggott never even marriage to his dupes. Ho worked in a. much more subtle fashion, and succeeded in filling his purse and. his harein without laying himself open to criminal charges/' . . ' " " RUTH REECE’S STORY. -

The Eutli Reece of the “John Bull” interview is. a vastly different, woman to the gloriously beautiful 'creature '.pictured for ns by imaginative nressmen,. who had hitherto exorcised their pens on the Pißgott scandal. To Mr Bottoml.ey’s agent, she appeared as a fast-fading, tirecl-l’ooking, drabdiairbd. woman of forty—a very ordinary woman gron'n ‘old and weary before, her time. :, 1 r,. ’, ( Ruth Eecoo’s'downfall was the result of curiosity., ; .Whilst in service -with a lady at Highgatc,-. North- London, sho heard that a strange sect had opened a church in the ’neighbouring parish of Ciapham, and called themselves "The Children of the Resurrection." " Out of mere idle curiosity,- Ruth—then a wroman in her twenty-eighth year—went to their .church, which was called "The Ark of'the Covenant,’’ and there ; she saw and heard for the first time SmythPiggott. : His teaching fascinated her, and in a very little , while she became one of the most regular attendants at his church. Presently she-received an invitation to take tea at Smyth-Piggott’s house. The result is best told in’Ruth Reece’s own language:— - : • ’ , “I went and found a comfortable' wellfurnished.. house. ■ Mrs Pi—ott Talked very kindly to mo,-hut I .saw nothing of the Master at tea-time. .;. After tea we went into the drawing-room, and presently the Master came in.: He greeted ’me , kindly, and then took no more' notice of me. After a lime his wife left the room, leaving ns alone '. ogetber. Directly she did so, I felt a strange sensation come over me—partly fear and partly a sense of anticipation that something was going to happen: He came and sat opposite to me. "Then very softly—his voice- is low, but beautifully clear —he said-: ‘Sister’, look at me.’. I-felt I-could mot: I’was afraid. He repeated the reqhest, and I forced myself to comply.’ ' His eyes seemed to burn into my inmost being; I could not withdraw them. I felt conscious that unless by a great effort I pulled myself together I should faint. Then he put ’out his hand’and touched mo. I shrank from it, and yet it was a delicious sense of repulsion.

"Oh, the devilish wiles of this man! He possesses the - monstrous' power of awakening the physical, and at the same time paralysing the moral sense. I felt perfectly assured . . , that ho intended to wrong me. and yet X could not struggle against it. But when I had reached my. home, that night, although no actual wrong had taken place, I felt a perfect agony of loathing against him and vowed -that I would never go near him or church again. But the next day 1 received a note from him: ' ’Come to mo at eight to-night.’ • ’ "The moment 1 read it I know 1 should go. and yet I vowed T' would not. But all those hours of that day X felt him drawing me to him, and in the evening, wrapped in. guilty shame, I crept out of the house. At'his house I saw.-Mrs Piggott. These, were, her words: ‘Do not fear-me—all is right.' I was too astonished to answer her. "Again I saw the Master alone. In his soft voice he began to talk of the j-oys of spiritual love and (as he put it) unfold the mystery of the Kingdom. lie told me ho was more than man. But I cannot dwell on it; it is too painful. That evening, in his own house and with his wife a few feet away in another room, he betrayed me. I fled home like a woman possessed, and. yet, I wanted him. Then I took a second step. I became an inmate of- his house,- and was with him when he made the announcement at Clapham that he was the ‘Messiah.’ ” IS IT HYPNOTISM? But Ruth Reece confesses that she has never been deceived into believing that Smyth-Piggott is any more than a man -possessing a great capacity for deluding and enslaving women. “Over me,” she said, "he exercises a power that too horrible in its- effects to be fully described. I am. as I have long been, his slave, subservient to his will—and what a will it is!—and yet I both loathe and desire him. . . I know I shall go back to tho Master. X cannot .live - without him.' -and that, is the testimony-of all those who are under his power. It may bo hypnotism or personal magnetism, or whatever term is used to describe the power -of the Master, but the effect is always the same. He awakens .the sensual and kills the’ moral part of our natures. I do not believe that one of bis victims really believes his spiritual claims, but vet we clutch at them as some sort of covering for our shame.” Ruth Eeeoe-says that sexual, imiaor-

ality is the beginning and end of life at Spaxton. It is' the'' reliction of SmytliPmgott, ■ ".During the years 1 1 nave been at°tlie '"Abode’.” said ' Sister Until, -1 have seen so many degrading sights {that' is, to normal'individuals) that at last -one', loses - all, sense of v outraged modesty. ... At; first the Master'was content with me as his victim; then, he preached and-practised ‘free, love, and immorality became general; . and’-then, descending to-darker depths, he .has. bee travod the innocent against rthwr will. • sonic of them of/ tender’ .years, And hand/ in' hand with -this has gone, robbery and deceit; for, again and again, females have come to Spaxton who. on entering, have given over every penny to the Master, deceived by lus religious pretensions and hypnotised by his personality.” • /