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Show bcspe'ofdST officially denied Latest Rumor Has No Morej Foundation Than the Other Stories. t FKTROOKA P. Dec 15 Former Urn- ; peror Nicholas of Russia lias escaped from bis eontinement at Tobolsk, according to advices said to have been received today nt the Sniolny institute, the Bolshevik! Iiea dquarters. A n official d-- nia I was made at the Smolny headqua i tei s i his afternoon that the former emperor had escaped from Tobolsk. The American consul at Tiflis, in the Russian Caucasus, recently sent a report, which was received in Washington on December S, statins rliat a rumor was in circulation that former Kmperor Nicholas had escaped. The message made It clear that there was no confirmation and there lias been nothing since received confirmatory con-firmatory of the report until the f'etro-rad f'etro-rad advices today, TobolFk is in Siberia, about 10 miles eat of Moscow. For some time after the- V, outbreak of Hie revolution and the mon-arch's mon-arch's deposition, he, with hit; family, was conlined in the royal palace at Tsar-. Tsar-. r.oe-Selo. On August 19, however, the Russian provisional government announced an-nounced that he Mad been transferred to I Tobolsk, together with the members of Ills family and his suite. At first he was quartered in the governor's palace in the town of Tobolsk, but on October 11 it way given out that lie and his family had been i transferred to a monastery situated about twenty miles outside. Shortly after the recent escape of General Gen-eral Komiloi'f and almost concurrently 1 with the rumor from Tiflis that Nicholas Roma noff . as i he emperor has hecn known since he was deposed, had effect - ; ed his escape, one of the Bolsheviki go -eminent organs in PcUograd announced t that several detachments of sailors of the, ' red guard h;ul been sent to Tobolsk to guard him. '; One of the many rumors that were our- Irent at about the time the Tiflis report was In circulation reached London by way of Zurich, and was to the effect that Xk-holas had made his way out of Siberia, Si-beria, th ron git Harbin, and had arrived in Japan. The route through Harbin was regarded as a most natural one for him 1o take, and this may have given rise to the rumor that he actually had traveled this road out of his former domain. The difficulties in his way, however, were recognized, as Tobolsk is 4000 miles from the Pacific roast and 100 miles from the Chinese border-. On the other hand, there were unon-iirmed unon-iirmed reports in November of a political overturn in Siberia which had made the vaM province a land friendly to t tie former for-mer ruler. The report, which camp through Kin land, said that Siberia- had declared its independence and had proclaimed pro-claimed Nicholas its emperor. |