AN ADVENTURESS.

Otago Witness, Volume 01, Issue 2123, 1 November 1894, Page 41

AN ADVENTURESS.

Of all the extraordinary stories of female adventurers, the account of the oareer of the " Goldan Hand," a Russian woman recently condemned to Siberia for life, reads most like an effort of fiction. Remarkably attractive and good looking, and speaking fluently Russian, Roumanian, German, French, and Englinh, she had been married 16 times, and in turn ran away from each of her hnsb*nd% carrying off everything upon whioh ihe could lay her hands. Once before she was condemned to Siberia, but had not been there long before the chief overseer fell a victim to her wiles, married her, and went off to Constantinople. But after a few months his wife bolted, and soon after was recognised ia Moscow by a police official, who proceeded to arresb her. In response to her urgent pleadings, however, he. delayed march-

ing her off upon the spot, and, like the rest, speedily succumbed to her fascinations, with the result that the woman again escivped and lived some two years in Russia unmolested. But her sixteenth husband, after she had made off with the bulk of hit worldly possessions, finding oufe who she really was, very speedily landed her in gaol, where the lawyer entrusted with her date ' cc had an opportunity of appreciating her skill as a pickpocket. When he went to aeo her in her cell she presented him with a gold watch and chain as a token of her graMtude for his efforts in her cause. Feeling in his pocket* ho afterwards discovered that the watch ami chain were his own.