A FEMININE FIEND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2546, 31 December 1902, Page 25

A FEMININE FIEND.

. WHOLESALE MURDERS AND TORTURES. ' "* (From Ottb Own Cobe^spondent.) LONDON, October 2*. ! A most extraordinary case- of brigandag* I has recently bean dealt with in the northern | part of Roumania, where a gang of brigands, by whom all the villages in, the vicinity have long b&en terrorised, is said to have j been dispersed by the authorities, and seme ! of its members arrested. A specially remarkable feature of the affair ! is flis fact that the chieftainness of the gang is a very pretty 33 r oung girl of 22, who I is described as a marvel alike of beauty, of i organising ability, and of extreme cruelty. This girl-leader is held responsible for no fewer than 86 murders, 198 other crimes |of violence, and 648 robberies. Night after night houses were attacked by her gang, and after being sacked and pillaged, were often burned. The inhabitants were made prisoners, and taken to the brigands' camp, where, in some instances, they were murdered outright, but in the majority of cases they were reserved for a worse fate. It was this strange girl's special delight - to torture her victims. In the first instance she had them tortured for the benefit of her gang, so that they might be forced to reveal all the property they possessed • or knew about as being owned by other people. r .Tf they had nothing to reveal, or when they had completed their revelations, they wei» handed over to the girl leader, that she might torment them at leisure for her own amusement. It is stated that she seemed to delight in inventing the most exquisite refinements of cruelty, and in prolonging tho torments of her hapless prisoners to the utmost possible extent, some of her devices being too shocking for description. Many of her victims died under her tortures, and fhose whom she did not torture to death she usually caused to be killed when she had done with them or was tired of her cruel sport.. The " other crimes of viole-nce-" of which she is accused mostly consist in these torturings of her captives. According to telegrams from Bucharest this female fiend has been arrested, a /eward equal to ovyr £500 in English money having been offered by the Roumanian Government for her capture. Her proceedings mostly took place in the neighbourhood o£ Jassy. - -