RASPUTIN 



6494 



Gregory Rasputin, 

 Russian fanatic 



Rasputin,GREGORY( 1873-1916). 

 Russian fanatic. Generally called 

 Rasputin, which means the im- 

 moral, his real 

 name was 

 Novikh, and 

 he was born 

 at Pokrovsky, 

 Siberia, his 

 father being 

 a fisherman. 

 H e received 

 no education, 

 and only hi 

 his later years 

 learned to 

 write a scrawling hand. He be- 

 gan life as a fisherman, but soon 

 showed himself a drunkard and a 

 thief, and was punished for stealing. 

 He acquired the epithet of " ras- 

 putin " because of his dissolute 

 habits, and he adopted the name. 

 When a very young man he be- 

 came a professional pilgrim he 

 was never a monk and, making 

 some money, returned to his 

 native village, but soon had to 

 withdraw from the place. He re- 

 sumed the role of professional pil- 

 grim and actually acquired the 

 reputation of a saint. 



In 1905 he was the fashion as a 

 " holy man " in Moscow, and 

 among his devotees were many 

 women, over whom he exercised 

 a hypnotic power. In the same 

 year he went to St. Petersburg, ap- 

 peared as the creator of a new 

 religious cult, and gained an in- 

 fluence at the Russian court, which 

 was much increased by the tsar- 

 ina's belief in his ability to cure 

 and keep cured the tsarevitch, her 

 ailing son. Gradually he acquired 

 a commanding position among the 

 reactionaries or " dark forces," and 

 made and unmade ministers, while 

 continuing his dissolute life. Ban- 

 ished to Siberia, on his denuncia- 

 tion by Milyukorl in the Duma in 

 1913, he returned to St. Petersburg 

 soon after the outbreak of the 

 Great War, was received with re- 

 newed favour by the tsarina, and 

 again became a sinister political 

 figure. On Dec. 29, 1916, he was 

 assassinated in Petrograd by some 

 highly placed Russians. He was 

 plotting to bring about a German 

 peace with Russia. See Rasputin 

 and the Russian Court, C. Omessa, 

 Eng. trans. 1918; Rasputin and 

 Russia, V. E. Marsden, 1920. 



Rassam, HORMTJZD( 1826-1910). 

 Archaeologist. Born at Mosul, his 

 father was a clergyman of the 

 Chaldean Church. Having assisted 

 Layard in his excavations, he 

 studied at Magdalen College, Ox- 

 ford, afterwards returning to his 

 archaeological work, during which 

 he discovered the palace of Ashur- 

 banipal, at Nineveh. In 1854 he was 



Hormuzd Rassam, 

 Archaeologist 



made British 

 resident at 

 Aden, and in 

 1864 he was 

 sent to Mag- 

 dala, where 

 King Theodore 

 imprisoned 

 him until re- 

 leased by Na- 

 pier's expedi- 

 tion. Later, he 

 worked for the British Museum, in 

 Mesopotamia. Rassam died at 

 Hove, Sept. 15, 1910. His works 

 include Asshur and the land of 

 Nimrod, 1897. 



Rasselas. Philosophical tale by 

 Samuel Johnson, published in 1759 

 with the full title of The History of 

 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. It 

 consists mainly of musings and 

 moralisings on human life, linked 

 by the thread of story of Rasselas 

 confined to the Happy Valley, of 

 his attempts to leave it, and of his 

 subsequent wanderings. 



Rastatt OR RASTADT. Town of 

 Baden, Germany. It stands on the 

 Murg, 3 m. from its union with the 

 Rhine, and 14 m. from Karlsruhe. 

 The chief building is the palace, 

 built on the model of the one at 

 Versailles and formerly the resi- 

 dence of the margraves of Baden. 

 A small place then, Rastatt was 

 destroyed by the French in 1689, 

 soon after which the margrave of 

 Baden rebuilt and fortified it. 

 It was, until 1871, one of the 

 strongest fortresses between France 

 and Germany. Pop. 15,000. 



The peace of Rastatt was a pre- 

 liminary to the treaty of Utrecht. 

 Made between France and Austria 

 in Nov., 1713, it put an end to the 

 war of the Spanish Succession. In 

 1797 another peace conference was 

 held here. This had no result, but 

 was notable because two of the 

 French envoys were murdered. The 

 reasons for the crime are obscure. 

 See Utrecht, Treaty of. 



Rastrick. District of Yorkshire 

 (W.R. ), part of the borough of 

 Brighouse. It stands on the 

 Calder, 5 m. from Halifax. 



Rat. Term applied 

 to many rodents of the 

 family Muridae, which 

 includes the mice, rats, 

 hamsters, voles, 



Rat. Black rat and, above, the brown rat, two British 

 species of the rodent 



W. S. lierridgc, F.Z.S. 



lemmings, and many others. The 

 largest group of the rodents, it is 

 world-wide in distribution. Nearly 

 all the animals of this family have 

 naked and scaly tails, narrow in- 

 cisor teeth, not more than three 

 pairs of cheek teeth hi each jaw, and 

 usually live in holes in the ground. 

 The rats proper are found naturally 

 only in the Eastern Hemisphere. 

 Great Britain possesses two species, 

 the black rat and the brown rat. 



The black rat is shorter in body 

 than the more familiar brown 

 species, but has a longer tail. Its 

 hair is greyish black on the upper 

 parts and pale yellow below, while 

 hi certain of the Channel Islands a 

 bluish variety occurs. The tame 

 white and pie-bald rats, which have 

 probably been bred hi a domesti- 

 cated state for at least two cen- 

 turies, are said to be descended 

 from this species. The brown 

 rat is a native of Trans-Baikal, 

 and migrated till it reached Eng- 

 land about 1730. It is larger and 

 more heavily built than the black 

 rat, and is much more ferocious in 

 disposition, and on reaching Great 

 Britain soon exterminated the older 

 species in most districts. 



Rats prefer the neighbourhood of 

 human dwellings and farms on 

 'account of the ease with which 

 food may be obtained. They are 

 omnivorous. They are amazingly 

 prolific, several litters of from 

 four to ten young ones being 

 produced each year. Apart from 

 the food they consume, rats do 

 great damage by burrowing and 

 by making holes in dram-pipes. 

 The species of flea which infests 

 rats is the vehicle of bubonic 

 plague. The English board of agri- 

 culture devoted much energy to- 

 wards exterminating rats in 1919- 

 -21, and various county councils 

 throughout the country organized 

 periodical campaigns, rewarding 

 those who killed a specified num- 

 ber. A Rat and Mouse Act, 1921, 

 placed on householders the onus of 

 destroying rats and mice in their 

 premises under penalty of a fine of 

 20. See Beaver Rat ; Pouched Rat. 

 R a t a 

 ( Metros id- 

 em s r o- 

 bustd) o R 

 IRONWOOD. 

 Tree of the 

 natural 

 order Myr- 

 taceae, a 

 native o f 

 New Zealand. It 

 has opposite, 

 glossy, oval 

 leaves, and clus- 

 ters of bright red 

 flowers. The 

 hard, close- 



