The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-03-30

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were the option left to him, to put his
own eyes out, like Edipus, rather than
see his daughters, innocent young girls,
sacrificed before his very sight, and
trodden under the heels of shame, he
being expressly made to stand by and
witness, with tied hands and feet, the
dreadful sight, God only knows with
what unspeakable agony. The
daughters of the greater number of fam
lilies, as also many married women,
have been carried off, and nothing has
been ascertained as yet as to their fate.
Until late at night the firing of mus
kerry continued with unabated fury,
and the number of corpseS lying about
in the streets and within the houses in
creased every moment. In the mean
time the pillage of houses and shops
went on most savagely. The plumber
was being continually brought out and
laden on carts and horses, and so bent
did the savage marauders seem to be
upon destruction that the goods that
the carts would no longer hold, being
already overladen, they threw under
the wheels, and, passing the carts over
them, broke them to pieces. The roofs
of 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 the general
massacre, had fled to the tops of their
houses, met there with their deaths aft
er being submitted to the most horrible
fortunes. Wheat, barley, Indian corn,
and other cereals were scattered about
in immense quantities in the streets.
The holy vessels of the Greek Church
were taken out and put up at a mock
auction, while the sacred edifice itself
was profaned by being turned into a
stable in which these monsters tied up
their horses. The cathedral church and
buildings, after having been pillaged,
We're set fire to and burned Owing to
the frenzy with which they broke into
the cathedral and the Bishops palace,
we had come to think that they must
have also laid murderous hands upon
our respected pastor, and that, in addi-
ton to the numberless other victims,
we should also have to mourn for the
loss of one of the most virtuous and dis
tinguished metropolitans of the ortho-
doX church. Fortunately, however, His
Eminence happened at the time to be
staying at Medea, one of the three ca
thedral towns of the See of VIA, and
was thus, by the will, undoubtedly, of
Divine Providence, saved from that
hurricane of murder and pillage. The
scenes that were being enacted in the
streets and houses are beyond descrip-
ton. The atrocities. committed here
| .fniy Without ,Noro11al
Respectful and peaceful citizens, wom-
en-, children, none were spared, but
either put to death by torture, shot or
mutihted. The hands of a sick and
dying person, who was being carried
to a Mussulman house by Turk, were
cut off, and the porter had his skull
broken.
After the bands of Zeibecs. Bashi-Ba-
zouks and Circassians came the gypsies,
seizing upon everything that the others
did not consider worth carrying off, and
completing the work of devastation.
Even the very mats of the houses were
carried away. On the following day,
from early dawn until night set in,
musketry fire was continually heard,
from which it appeared that the savages
must have returned to VIA for the pur-
pose of completing the work of the pre-
ceding day. They plundered again the
houses and shops, seized upon every
thing that could be carried away, mer-
cilesSly put to death all the inhabitants,
men, women and children, that they
could lay their hands upon, and finally
ended by setting fire to the town, which
soon became a whirlpool of flames and
smoke, while they rushed toward the
mountains, where few of the inhab-
itants had managed to escape, and whom
they now sought out, their thirst for
Christian blood being not yet satisfied.
About one-half of the population of
VIA, consisting entirely of Greeks,
some at the point of death, others al
ready 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 wan
dering there, in the very heart of winter,
almost naked, with bare feet, without Il
roof over their heads, without food of
any kind, trembling with cold, hunger
and fear. The father, the mother, the
children of one and the same family,
no longer recognizing one another, are,
in a sepulchral voice and with bloodshOt
eyes, asking each other whether they
know what has become of their fathers,
their husbands, their mothers, their
children; if anyone has seen or heard
of them; whether they are alive or dead.
From VIA the wild bands betook
themselves to the villages of st. George,
st. John, Pinaca, Tchakli, Karaki,
Serial, Yorau, Mukriatissa, Asranyo,
Toprika, Ahmet Bey, Messina, Tsfikoi
and Tchogara. New atrocities, new
scenes of pillage, rapine, murder and
devastation, occurred at each of these
places. The same terrible fate seems
to have befallen not only the villages
belonging to the " caza, or circumfer-
ence of VIA, numbering population
of some II, 900 souls, exclusively Greeks,
but also those belonging to the "cazas"
of Medea, Pyrgos, and other =" cazas"
appertaining to the g sandiak'' of Ro-
dosto; and furthermore, according to
information received thence, those be-
longing to the "sandjak'' of Adriano-
pie. About these. however, can give
no details, as the telegraphic commune
cation has been largely interrupted on