Show FOE A WOMANS WRONG A Dying Mans Confession of an Oath and Its Relentless Fulfill meat The Story Confirmed by a Skeleton Alexander Semiloff a Pole aged about years died few days since at Reeds station near Philadelphia He had only been there a short time and was regarded by his countrymen with considerable awe He came of a noble family and was an able linguist speaking fluently flu-ently the English French Russian and Polish languages and was a highly educated man He was very I reticent rarely speaking to any person and always wore a downcast down-cast look as if haunted by some terrible secret On Tuesday heiwas taken ill A priest and physicari was summoned Upon being told that he could not live until morning morn-ing he said he desired to free his mind by making a confession con-fession Two other gentlemen came in afterwards and in the presence I of the four he told the following story In 1853 i lived with my fatherin the Polish town Jltomer on the Russian frontier I was then only a child My mother had died some three years before We lived in the town quietly until in the fall of year when my fathers sister a gay handsome young woman whose husband was serving in the Russian army in Turkestan came to tho place to live By some means she became unduly intimate with a Captain Romanoff son of the prefect of the village and the captain of a Cossack regiment At last he induced her to fly fiopa her husband In a short time she ended her wretched career in BadenBaden in one of the worst resorts As soon as my father heard of her betrayal he took me upon his knee and made me swear to avenge the wrong by killing off the accursed family Soon after the prefect was found lying dead by the roadside My father had killed him and left I his pistol lying by his side so as to I give an idea of suicide and it was I generally thought that the prefect had destroyed himself Boon my father placed me in an academy at Warsaw and joining the Russian army in the Crimea followed out his plan of revenge The betrayer and his brother were officers in the army and were by some chance assigned to the regiment in which my father served One night they were found dead in their tents a knife still sticking in the heart of each Fearing detection for it was father who had committed the deed he deserted the army and for years I saw nothing of him Occasionally he wrote me from various points all his letters breathing r breath-ing the same spirit of vengeance j One night he appeared at the university l uni-versity in disguise and requested me to follow him Next morning I we left for Italy and in a short time arrived at Milan From there we I went to Florence where my father said our work of vengeance was to I be done A brother of Romanoff the prefect was an atache of the Russian legation at the court of Victor Emanuel and we determined to slay him For days we followed him but could never find a change to I I safely accomplish our purpose One night we saw him walking on the river bank accompanied by another gentleman and I determined to kill him that I night Trusting to the cover of our masks my father sprang at the throat of Romanoffs companion and throwing him while I sprang upon Romanoff and stabbed him to the heart twice Binding his companion com-panion we then threw the dead body intd the Arno with the knife still sticking in it We left his friend lying there helpless and returned re-turned to the city Next morning my father was arrested while sitting in the church on a charge of murder Hearing of it I escaped on the mountains My fathers disguise had not been perfect and llomanoffs companion gave such a description of him that he was identified iden-tified Shortly afterward he was tried convicted and hanged I joined a band of brigands un aer the command of Spizzia who was recently captured in New Orleans Or-leans and for some time the wildlife wild-life satisfied me Soon I returned to Poland and found that the Eo manoffs bad been scattered A number had been exiled to Siberia for treason while three had gone to America E immediately determined to follow fol-low them and after searching from 1876 to 1831 I found them at this place but before my vengeance could overtake them two of the three had diedfromtlisease and but one Albert Loboski was left I then secured work here and plotted his destruction One night he disappeared dis-appeared Nothing was thought of it as mysterious disappearances are common among our class I killed him and would have gone back to Russia to finish my work had it not been for this sickness The listeners were appalled by this story The man then proceeded to tell in a husky voice the place where he buried the man and after receiving the sacrament from the priest expired thus escaping the power of the law This morning a party proceeded to the spot indicated indi-cated and exhumed a skeleton with a large rusty dirk knife protruding There was then no doubt as to the truth of Semiloffs story Correspondence Corre-spondence Philadelphia Times |