AN AMAZING CAREER.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 July 1922, Page 5

AN AMAZING CAREER.

REVOLUTIONARY’S EVIDENCE. In the Banco Court at Melbourne Mrs. Julia Gibson, better known as Madame Ghurka, a phrenologist, who was a -witness for the Crown in the Colin Ross murder trial, told an amazing story of her life during the hearing of a divorce suit, Kerr v. Kerr. In the course of cross-examination, Madame Ghurka said that Odessa, in Southern Russia, was her birthplace. When she was aged only 14 years her young brother, aged 10 years, was ordered by the Governor-General, whose name -was Zilonha, to be shot as a revolutionary- She became a revolutionary herself, and, at the age of 16, took her chance with others in the drawing of lots for the killing of the aristocrats. She drew the fatal number for the killing of Zilonha, and threw a bomb at his carriage, killing his horses and wounding him. She did it to avenge her young brother. She was arrested and sentenced to death. That sentence was commuted to imprisonment in Siberia for life, and she was sent to work in the salt mines. She managed to escape, with the assistance of the medical officer, and went to 'England. After she left England she was employed on secret service missions for the British Government, travelling through Belgium. France. Germany, Russia Tartary, and Turkestan. She admitted that she avenged herself on the Siberian authorities by killing the son of General Kuropatkin.