Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-12-29

return 70 the ncighboring' VILLAGE tn be
paid Oh. The wages are Forthcoming
and the laborers allowed to depart with
their hardly earned money. But thav
mare no sooner gone than the peas
amt farmer assemblies his NEIGH
bors. and having provided them
with horses and firearms, the whole
party sallies forth in pursuit of the yao-
abonds- The retiring laborers are
speedily overtaken; most arc killed on
the spot, all are robbed. the recovered
money being divided between the farm
er and his confederates. The only re-
spec: shown for authority is the preva-
lent habit, where robbery has been the
motive OF slaughter, OF concealino the
dead The murdered conyicts are
usually cut up and mutilated, and the
remains buried in out-o.-the .way
places. The hunting of the s.hunch-
backs, as the escaped convicts are Oft
en- called In derision, has gone on for
years, entering so deeply into the hab.
It's OF the people that it has escaped the
attention of few travellers through East
ern Siberia where are the men,"
was asked of a woman left in charge OF
small village adjoining the highway.
leone after the hunchbacks," was the
reply. Such is the prevailing democrat
ization in this respect that bows have
been heard to ask their fathers to kill
vagabonds in order that they may see
"how the fellow will roll on his hump"
In some of the governments it is certain
death for convict escaped. or still un-
der supervision, to be caught returning
from the mine. Occasionally the sol
| a IN -
| ploitation of the vagabond. The Co.'S
sack, as well as the ordinary colonists.
covets cheap labor, and is in the habit
of rewarding with an ounce or two of
lead the convict who declines to pass
from one condition of bond slavery to
another.
During the colonization of the Trans
baikal region the hunting of vagabonds
was one of the common diversions of
the newly-arrived settlers. From
Tomsk to Chit there is locality that
has rendered itself notorious for the
pursuit on large scale OF escaped con-
victs. In the Tomsk Government itself
whole villages are described as living
solely by the robbery of vagabonds.
The river Karasan has been so filled
with the bodies of murdered cow cts as
to become putrid. Near Fingul open
woods are known as favorite ground
for the slaughter. The whole of the
districts full of the memories and ira
ditions Of Siberian man hunting He
roes of the sport are still alive, Bitkov,
Romanov and Zavorota were each ex-
pert in different ways. Romanov for
instance gained celebrity in the village
of Fingul, where he was in the habit OF
lying in ambush close to the highway,
and shooting down every vagabond who
passed. In the autumn evenings Bit
kov used to pick OF stragglers along
the banks of the river Augar. During
subsequent sport along the Biryus there
were individual Siberians who boosted
that they had brought down as many
as sixty and in some cases ninety vag-
abonds. Only upon one of these hunt
ers of men do the vagabonds seem to
have taken vengeance. They selected
one Paramonich, who had been all his
lie engaged in killing convicts. The
, vagabonds assembled together, seized
i him and brought his career to a close
by plunging him alive into cauldron
of incandescent metal.-St. Petersburg
Cor. London Globe.