ITALIAN RASPUTIN.
AMAZING STORIES OF CRIME. LONDON, January 3. The Daily Chronicle’s Milan correspondent states that there was special and intense excitement during the five weeks’ trial, which has just concluded, of the apostate priest Friar Ciavolino, a leading Franciscan preacher, who was sentenced to 24 years’ imprisonment on a charge of murdering his superior. The crowded court daily heard amazing stories of the friar’s criminal love affairs, covering 10 years. The ruin of 32 families was attributed to him. Thousands of love letters were read from the accused’s admirers, the victims including a countess. He had a long association with actresses and houses of ill-fame and gambling re sorts, which culminated in his murdering his, father superior with an iron bar. He then went to his mistress’s house, donned a woman’s stage clothes, and bade all eat, drink, and be merry. The accused admitted that he had lost
his belief in religion soon after he had taken his vows, but continued in the order for the sake of the fees and the facilities it gave him for making his conquests.
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Otago Witness, Issue 3487, 11 January 1921, Page 16
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181ITALIAN RASPUTIN. Otago Witness, Issue 3487, 11 January 1921, Page 16
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