RITUAL MURDER TRIAL

Otago Witness, Issue 3117, 10 December 1913, Page 27

RITUAL MURDER TRIAL

ST. PETERSBURG, December 1. Beiliss, in the course of an interview, made some remarkable disclosures in respect to his treatment in prison. Fearing poison, he always induced a soldier of the guards to share his food. His cell door was left open in order to invite him to escape. He peered through it once, and saw a man holding a revolver, who, on seeing him, crept silently away. He would undoubtedly have been shot if he had attempted to escape. The night before the verdict a soldier visited his cell, and ordered him to strip, then searched his clothes and mouth and combed his beard. In reply to remonstrances the soldier said: ‘Shut up, you devil! I’ve been told to' kill you.” Beiliss’s cries brought the governor to the cell, who said the man was looking for poison. Afterwards he was treated more kindly. When mounting the staircase on the final morning he passed two students wearing the Black Hundred buttons. One of them, shaking his fist, said : ‘‘They wall teach you to kill Christian children, you dirty Jew.” Beiliss w»as greatly cheered by the presence of the hundred journalists in court, knowing that all countries would thus be made aware of the facts, and nothing hushed up.