LAST MOMENTS OF CZAR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20290, 24 December 1927, Page 17

LAST MOMENTS OF CZAR.

A doss friend of Voikoff, the recently assassinated Russian Ambassador to Poland, who first became notorious through 'signing the Czar's death warrant at Ekaterinburg, has given a new account of the last moments of the unfortunate monarch to a special correspondent of the Journal.

This man lived next door to the house of the merchant Ipatieff, where the Imperial family were lodged. On the fatal night he noticed an unwonted activity among the Red Guard, and saw a little boy who used to play with the Czarevitch being led away in tears. Next day Voikoff remarked: We shot them on the ground floor. There were 11 of them, the Czar, the Czarina, five children Dr Bodkin and three servants. Our ni«n numbered 12 also. Up to the last minute the Czar merely thought that his place of residence was tn he changed owing «> the approach of the Czccho-Slovaks and the Whites. When he received a bullet m tile ucad he rnu irked in astomshmem, -rh--(i tliev arc not going to move me.’ A workman named Mai.-nikoff was as miVh involved in the murder of the Imperial familv as Voikoff, it appears. He fled later to Rumania, and now occupies a lucrative position in a Caucasian ban*.

Although the number of school children in London -hows a decrease, there has been an increase of 20.000 adolescents and adults attending evening schools in tho last three or four years.