MURDERS IN SPAIN.

Wairarapa Age, 14 August 1936, Page 5

MURDERS IN SPAIN.

ATTEMPTED “EXECUTION” BY ANARCHISTS. HOSPITAL MATRON’S ESCAPE. ASSASSIN DEVELOPS RELIGIOUS MANIA. (Received Thursday, 7.35 p.m.) LONDON, August 12. The “Daily Telegraph’s’ Ferpignan correspondent cites a distinguished Briton at Barcelona as his authority for tne following story related to him by an hospital doctor at Gave, between Barcelona and Bilges. The doctor and a fellow practitioner prepared an emergency hospital, with twelve village girls as nurses, under a devout elderly matron. Four members of the Anarchist Federation entered the matron’s room and told her she was such a distinguished religieuse she must “go for a ride.” She went without protest in order to avoid imperilling the hospital staff. The men drove her three miles and forced her from the car. She declined to be blindfolded and asked for a crucifix, which they refused. All four fired. One bullet penetrated the victims thigh and two her left arm. A fourth richochetted from a medallion of the Virgin Mary, wounding her in the chest and shoulder. The victim was left for dead, but she crawled back to the hospital where the anarchists called a few days later and were astounded to find her sitting up. The doctors dissuaded them from taking her out for execution until she recovered. They returned next day. She told them she was praying to God to forgive them as fully as she had done. The anarchists expressed contrition. One subsequently developed religious mania and was admitted to hospital, where he continued .to shout that the assassins’ aim was upset by the Virgin Mary, whom the quartette clearly saw standing beside their intended victim. “CHASED LIKE BEASTS.” MANY PRIESTS ASSASSINATED IN BARCELONA. FOUR HUNDRED SLAIN IN FIVE DAYS. (Received Thursday, 7.35 pun.) LONDON, August 12. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Vatican City correspondent says Father Rubini, superior of the Order of Servants of the Infirm, who has returned from a tour of Spain, reported that four hundred ecclesiastics were assassinated in Barcelona in five days. Father Rubini was obliged -to hide in a forest near Vich for five days, because priests “were chased like wild beasts.” On the sixth day, he was arrested and questioned by a tribunal for eight seccessive days, after which he was freed, following an intervention by the Italian Consul. Father Rubini says the crying need of the masses is social reform.