RASPUTIN’S EVIL CAREER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1691, 27 March 1917, Page 1

RASPUTIN’S EVIL CAREER.

Concerning the murder of Gregory Rasputin, the Russian priest, Vdiose body was found near the mouth of the Neva, Reuter’s Petrograd correspondent wrote: It is no exaggeration to say that the whole of Russia breathes more freely for the removal of a most baleful inlluence, recognised as one of the picots of the Germanophiie forces. This hideous medieval nightmare is now dissipated, and no purpose would be served by recapitulating its immoral horrors. One may leave history to marvel at the power wielded by the uneducated Siberian peasant, with his notorious depravity, whose name is execrated throughout the length and breadth of the Empire. Tlis unlimiled sway over certain personalities is generally ascribed to hypnotic powers. The story of Gregory Rasputin is a most extraordinary one. Ron of a Siberian farmer, and a man of no education, he managed at one time by some strange means to secure such an inlluence at the Russian capital that he became an important factor in politics. Born at Tobolsk about -10 years ago, his real name was Gregory Xovykh, but the peasants of his district nicknamed him Gregory Rasputin, which may be freely translated “Gregory the Rake,” He became a “lay monk," and acquired a reputation for sanctity, and his advice was much sought after, particularly by women, over whom he exercised a sort of hypnotic influence which was always for their good. He seems to have made his first appearance in Petrograd about 1010, and soon began to exert over the fashionable women of the capital the same strange power of fascination as he had wielded over the peasant women of his native Siberia. His reputation as a man of sanctity and as a “healer’’’ even secured him a reception at Tsarskoye Selo. He was used as an instrumem of intrigue by certain reactionary dir ques, .made many enemies, apd was bitterly attacked in the Duma and the press, but the favour which he enjoyed in aristocratic circles remained unshaken. In reality his religion was nothing but a cloak; he was a charlatan and imposter.- In 1914 he was attacked by a woman, who said she had decided to kill him because he was a “false prophet," and was leading people astray. AL though seriously wounded in the abdomen, Rasputin recovered. Last Alaj U >vas reported that he had been murdered in Petrograd, but this was untrue.