The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1878-03-21


In a Greek City 500 Greeks Penned up In q
Cave and Killed with the Fumes Of Birthstone.
Correspondence London Daily News
CoNsTANTlNoPLE Feb. l3,--On the 22d
ofJanuary the Commander in chief, Me-
hemet Ali Pasha, coming from the local
tiles north Of Adrianople, passed through
VIA at the head of an array of thirty
two thousand, and stayed one night in
the town. The inhabitants, exclusively
Greeks, spared no pains or money in pro-
Viding for the General and his army. In
the midst of the reugees, following in
the wake Of Mehemet Ali Pasha, and
who since the day before had been con-
stantly passing through the town, there
suddenly appeared, coming toward VIA,
a large body of armed men, consisting
entirely of Bashi. Bazouks, ZeibeCs and
CirCassians.
No sooner were they in the town than
these savage herds of marauders,without
a single word of explanation or warning,
fell like hungry wolves upon the unpre-
pared and peaceful inhabitants, seized
almost all of them, and, after plundering
them of what they happened to have
about their persons, obliged them, by
pointing their guns at their heads, to
say whether and where they had any
money hidden. There is no torture they
did not invent to extract from their vic
tins such confession. MassaCres, muir
ders, tortures, mutilations, rapine, pillage
and fre-such was their internal pro.
gramme. Priests were seized, insuted,
and ultimately tied on piles of wood and
burned alive. Many a parent would
have preferred, were the option left him,
to put his own eyes out, like Qdipus,
rather than see his daughters, innocent
young girls, sacrificed before his sight at
the altar of dishonor, and trodden under
the heels Cf shame, he being expressly
made to stand by, and witness, with tied
hands and feet, the dreadful sight, God
only knows with what unspeakable ag'
ony.
The daughters of the greater number
of families, as also many married women
upon whom the savages had sated their
most brutal passions, have been carried
of, and nothing has been learned as yet
as to their fate. Until late at night the
firing of musketry continued with una
bated fury, and the number of corpses
lying about iE the streets and within the
houses increased every moment. In the
meantime the pillage of houses and shops
went on most savagely. The plunder
was being continually brought out and
laden on carts and horses, and 30 bent
did the savage marauders seem to be
upon destruction, that the goods that the !
carts would no longer hold, being over
laden already, they threw under the |
wheels, and driving over them, broke |
them to pieces The roofs of the houses |
were pierced through or pulled down |
that nothing that might by chance be |
hidden there should escape their greedy |
grasp. Thus many people who, in the
hope of escaping general massacreih ihad
fed to the tops of their houses, met there
with their death, after being subjected
TO the most horrible tortures.
The scenes that were being enacted in
the streets and houses are beyond de-
SCription. The atrocities committed are
without parallel. They plundered again
the houses and shops, seized upon every
thing that could be carried away, merCi
lessly put to death all the inhabitants,
men, women and children they could
lay their hands upon, and finally ended
by setting fire to the town, which soon
became whirlpool Of flames and smoke,
while they rushed toward the mountains,
where few of the inhabitants managed
to escape to, and whom they now sought
out, their thirst for Christian blood not
being satiated. About one'half the pop
ulation of VIA, consisting entirely of
Greeks, some at the point of DEATH 9TH
ers already dead, are lying about in the
streets and houses, unburied and rotting,
while those who managed to effect their
esCape to the mountains are still wander
ing there, in the very heart of winter, al.
most naked, with bare feet, without
roof over their heads, without food of
any kind, trembling with cold, hunger
and fear. The father, mother and child
rem of one and the same family no lon
ger recognizing each other, are, in Sc.
pulchral voice and bloodshot eyes, ask
ing each other whether they know what
has become of their fathers, husbands,
mothers, children; if any one has seen
or heard of them; whether they are dead
or alive.
The inhabitants of the village of Saint
George, 800 souls in all, Greeks entirely,
flying before the Circsssians who had
attacked and destroyed their village,
managed to hide themselves in large
cave near Kara Dare. The Circassians,
ever thirsting for Christian blood, were
searching for victims, and finally found
the place of refuge of these unfortunate
people, and tried to effect an entrance
into the cave, In this, however, they
failed, the entrance to the cave being
we'll guarded and bravely defended by
the refugees. This show of resistance
by the people, and the fact, perhaps, that
three of their number were mortally
wounded by the shots fred from within,
seemed to exasperate them the more,
and after two or three attempts to effect
an entrance, but without success, they
determined by any possible means to
put to death those within. They acCor'
diugly set to their internal work, and by
means of crowbars they ultimately sue
Ceeded in opening hole in the roof of
the cave, through which, without loss of
time, they proceeded to pour a quantity
of birthstone and asphalte, which they
fred with their guns through the hole.
As a consequence the inside of the cave
was in few moments filed with smoke |
80 dense that the poor people dropped |
4 -. Ii, nf nonok,ov,
The souls of eight hundred martyrs |
fed almost simultaneously toward the |
foot of the throne of their Creator, the |
Almighty. Out of the eight hundred |
who entered the cave only eighteen were
saved, almost by a miracle, having on |
first entering the cave taken their stand |
at the furthest end of it, and having af- |
ter the CirCassans had taken themselves |
Of, exulting no doubt in their abomina-
BILE work, come out of that immense