A WELL PULL OF MURDERED WOMEN.

Patea Mail, 14 June 1881, Page 3

A WELL PULL OF MURDERED WOMEN.

Cairo has recently been plunged into profound consternation by the discovery of an apalling crime, or rather series of crimes, perpetrated in that city by a religious recluse, Shiekh Hamuda Burda, hitherto enjoying a high reputation for sanctity, and even popularly credited with supernatural powers of extraordinary efficaciousness in the way of caring female patients hy holy spells, imparted to him hy the prophet. Women were wont to make pilgrimages from all parts of Lower Egypt to the house of this supposed saint, in order to solicit his intercession with Allah on their account.

A few weeks ago the wife of an Egyptian officer betook herself to the Shiekh’s residence for this purpose. When, however, several hours had elapsed, without anything having been seen or heard of her since she entered Hamuda’s doors, her husband applied to the Cairo police for assistance to discover her whereabouts, and a rigid search was forthwith instituted in the holy man’s domicile. To the horror of the unfortunate officer, his wife’s body was found, with several other female corpses, thrust into a huge cistern standing in the Sbiekh’s garden. This cistern, in fact, was brimful of murdered women. Hamuda Burda, arrested on the spot and conveyed to prison, subsequently confessed to the Cadi that it had been his piactice for some time past, whenever consulted by a female possessed of rich jewels or other portable property of value, to invite his visitor to take a turn with him in his garden, where he would

then proceed to strangle her, despoil her remains and fling them into the cistern. Egyptian justice has probably by this time made an example of this saintly personage by hanging him np in front of his own house, door.—London Telegraph.