The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-11-29
DISTRIBUTE HALF MILLION
TO RUSSIAN CHURCHES.
Recluse Left Cash Under Peculiar
Circumstances. Fairy Tale That
Prove to Be True.


ST. REPRESENTATIVE authori-
ties of st. Petersburg are at present
engaged in distributing the sum of
100000, which has just been be-
queathed to a number of churches
and monasteries in somewhat singu-
lar circumstances. The number OF
religious establishments that are to
benefit by the legacy is said to be as
many as 200, and as the will is not
a little complicated in form the pro-
ceedings are likely to last some time.
The money was accumulated by an
old woman. who had all the charac-
teristics of a parsonage in Dickens.
Nine. Kolobova was thought to have
died pauper, and, indeed, was bur
led as such, but subsequently it fell
to the duty of the police to search
her rooms, as there was talk OF
fabulous hoard said to be hidden in
the kitchen At first the police found
small trace of any wealth beyond
quantity of urs of some value, but
which for the greater part had been
irreparably damaged by moths. For
the rest the rooms seemed to have
served nothing better than a store
house for old newspapers and for
piles of rags.
Money Is Found.
On beginning to make clearance,
however they soon discovered that
what they had thought was a fairy
tale was really more than true. In
almost every nook and Granny they
oil t1U0tlV
and neatly bound up, some of which
contained banknotes and others share
certificates or little deeds, while in
the piano, an old worthless lnstru-
ment, they discovered quite number
Of rolls of gold. In consequence of
their discovery they decided to ques-
ton the young servant girl who had
nursed the old woman in her last
hours, and ultimately with the help
of others who had long ago had some
acquaintance with the recluse, they
We're able to piece together some
thing of her history.
Ten or twelve years ago the recluse
had her sister living with her, and
at the time, although something OF
peculiar person, was by no means
hermitlike in her habits. Every Sun
day she would receive countless
priests, beggars and Sisters of the
Poor, and would have some money to
give to each. Since the death OF the
sister, however, her door has been
closed to all strangers, and only her
servant and her landlady ever set
eyes on her. 1t is said that during
all this time and for several years be-
fore she made it a rule never to
open the windows. She prided her
self that she never washed, and never
paid for heating purposes. All the
heat that she required she got from
the gas lamps in her room, but in the
winter she would sometimes move
into the kitchen, eXpelling her ser
want and placing her for the time be-
ing in her own room, despite the cold,
and these were the only occasions on
which she had fire in the kitchen
stove.
AS a rule she prepared her food
herself with the aid of lamp placed
on the piano, and in her very last
DAYS she threw her unconsumed
fragments into the piano case. Every
door was decorated with an assem-
blage of bolts and bars, so that the
house was more like a prison than a
dwelling place, but as though these
precautions were not enough the old
miser had fixed up double series OF
alarm bells on each door.