The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-21
RUSSIAN ILL-WILL
 AGAINST FRANCE Mme. Sarah Bernhardt 0is- CuSSeS the Situation FATE OF AN ADVENTURES After Posing as Countess of Note and Borrowing All the Money She Could Get Is Finally Locked
 In Prison.
FATE OF AN ADVENTURES
By PAUL VILLIERs.


 Paris. February 2O.-Mme. Sarah Bern hardt, the famous actress, who has spent considerable time in Russia this winter, has expressed the opinion that there Is a growing feeling of i'll will toward France in the Czar empire. 'I adore Moscow" she said, but l remarked the frame of the mind of the Moscovits has greatly changed. In my former impress sions Moscow was marked as the center of intense Russian patriotism. Now, at the very beginning, in conversation with a prominent public man, I saw that there Is a. new order of things. Instead, reign discontent and protest. bitter, rancorous' saw many young people, and found in them a keenly critical spirit, together with signs of intense eXasperatlon. heard complains that France had impeded the movement for obtaining liberty by lending money to the government. had heard the same in Paris. but did not pay much attention to it. Representatives or various classes spoke to me about the matter in Moscow. I will not conceal from you that in my humble opinion the Franco- Russia union Is going through a crisis In St. Petersburg it was also porn in on me that the former sympathy Tor France has vanished. l happened to talk with princess, the wife of a noted pup lie man, and from her lips l heard sueh revolutionary sentiments as never in my life had l heard before. She spoke 1oud- lv with emphasis, and was evidently not afraid of her words. l am giving you a travellers impressions; but 1t seems to hle 1Ciod grant that l am Wrong), that the present quiet Russia is deceptive and that in the future bitter trials await her. mat quiet frightens me- it is like the silence before the recommencement of storm, When I have been sleepless at nights l have thought great deal about it, and now I cannot hide from you the impress sion it has made in my soul.
 The question of capital punishment touches Sarah Bernhardt very deeply. ..They tell me that even women are executed. That is horrible l cannot even picture it to myself woman, weak woman on the scaffold," and with nerv- ous gesture she covered her face with her hands All this" she went on, 'is not my business. only l am terribly inn pressable. l often make mistakes, for l judge like a woman. We live without hearts, and I feel for all who are un- happy, and for those who may have gone astray in their political views. Oh, those conversations at Moscow, they seem to me now a nightmare"
 An adventures, who posed as countess, has appeared at the Montpelier police court, charged with swindllng or an extraordinary character. In 1906 she ar rived in the town accompanied by two children, a nurse, and goVerness, ana nut up at the leading hotel, in which she occupied the best suite of rooms. As she paid her bills regularly for a time, tipped the hotel servants lberally and drove through the town III gorgeous eouippage, she was looked upon as wealthy woman. She represented herself as the wife of Count D'Anglemonth, highly placed Russian official, and when she informed prominent residents, whose acquaintance she had made, that her al- lowance had not arrived they did not hesitate to lend her money. She received large sums of money from the proprietor of the hotel, a property owner, and two priests; and as she did not pay it back an inquiry into her antecedents was in stituted. It was found that she had been twice convicted of swindling. A Paris stock broker, it was stated, had given her $100,000 in 15 years. While in Paris she moved in high society and was looked upon as a fashionable woman. She was arrested on a complaint lodged by the hotel proprietor, and was sentenced to three months imprisonment
 
 Quite a scandal has been caused by the revelation of the barbarous treatment meted out to boys in the reformatory, where the lad, who had fallen in love with an English variety girl at Marseilles, committed suicide a little over a week ago It is stated that there are several dark rooms or "black holes" in the base ment of the institution which the public prosecutor has inspected. A former in ta oP D. broker at Tours, and who was an inmate as a boy, gives a terrible account of his experience. He was sent there because one day he had taken a boat and gone out to sea with another boy. He was first shut up in a cell where he tried to break a hole through the wall to com- municate with another boy. On being dis covered he was put into one of the black holes" in the cellar, where he had only a couch of common boards to lie on, with out any mattress or covering. The place was cold and pitch dark. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was left there for nearly 4S hours with a piece of black bread and jug of water, which, owing to the way his hands were tied, he was unable to touch. He cried and begged to be relea sed, but for two days nobody came near him. The authorities, it seems, are determined to make a strict inquiry.
 After he had long been wanted by the police, and when five of his accomplices had already been captured, the leader of 6 cosmopolitan gang of thieves has been captured. The man masqueraded under various appellations, and displayed re- markable cleverness in eluding police pur- suit during the last eight or ten years. Four years ago a jeweler and his son, at Equerdreville, near Dieppe, were mur- dered and about $2OO,O0o worth of securi- ties disappeared At Brussels in the following year, another jeweler was also murdered ,>and shares to a similar amount were stolen. They got into the possession of the man who has just died, and he was known to have been implicated in 16 other thefts and robberies. Still the police could not find them. About year ago it was discovered that several mil lion francs worth of shares of the North ern railway of France had been forged, and the forgercy was traced to him. Lat terly two men, members of his gang, were arrested at Lausanna, and three more were caught in Paris. The police then discovered the ring leaders establish ment in the Rude de Moscow, where he had a fully equipped up-to-date atelier of photo engraving, and finally they also traced him to his private residence. He was seriously ill from a cancer in the stomach