Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-02-14
Geo. KEENAN, is Now Lecturing in
Chicago on His Recent Travels
Through Siberia.
He Has Furnished Some Facts il
Regard to the Recent Murders
of Political Prisoners.
If the Russian Government Wish it
He Will Prove Every Statement
He Has Made.
George Remnants Lecture:

UcUTk0 h0u1lAn6 A0CCur0s
CHICAGO, Feb. 7.-George KEENAN,, now
lecturing here o. Siberia, has given to the
Associated Press a resume of a voluminous
correspondence received by him in regard
to the massacre of Russian administrative
exiles at Yakutsk on April 8 last, an occur
renee which has hitherto been ~strenuously
denied by the Russian government. One
of these letters, written by a survivor of
the affair, is six pages in length and sets
forth with great exactness of detail, every
particular of the massacre and the events
leading up to Immediately preceding and
succeeding it. KEENAN, declared the com
m%unications to be Of the most impartial
character, and even unimpassioned in tone,
and said they were to be thoroughly relied
on, but he withheld the names of his cor
respondents, as publication of their names
would involve them in trouble with the
Russian administration. st appears" said
KEENAN,, "that towards the latter part of
February last, ,%thirty-three politicals on
their way to VerkhovansK and Sredni-
Colymsk, were quartered temporarily at
Yakutsk, the first named places being dis
tant from st. Petersburg 1883 and 7,518
miles respectively, in a part Of Siberia so
remote from civilization that it is seldom
visited by human beings.
THE ExILES' PETITION.
Under the Russian penal code it is a
criminal otfense for political exiles to
unite in a petition for the redress of griev-
ances. Each exile therefore prepared a
separate petition and presented it to the
office of the provincial administration.
The letters then go OH to tell how they
were directed to assemble in the house of
the exiles and when there were told the
governor regarded their individual petit
tons as merely an evasion of the law and
their action equivalent to open rebellion.
"At 10 o'clock next day" writes one of the
actual participants in the dreadful affair,
1--WE met again to the number of thirty
three. On account of the conflicting
orders the exiles remained in the house
and the Cossacks were turned loose on
them. AS a result of the ARRAY, six, includ-
ing one woman, were killed outright and
all badly wounded. The government
casualties Iwere one soldier killed and the
governor and a soldier slightly wounded,
Three months later the survivors were
tried by court martial on the charge of
resistance, but no defense was heard.
Three Of the prisoners were hanged.
Koha1 Burnstein, who had been severely
wounded and was unable to stand,
was taken to the scaffold on
a cot bed from the hospital, a
moose put around his neck and the cot
taken from under him. He was choked to
death. Fourteen others, including four
women, were sentenced fol- different terms
ranging from ten to fifteen years. 81 con-
slider that this information received from
Russia" said KEENAN, in conclusion, $50
minute and circumstantial in every detail,
and knowing the reliability of its source to
be a complete and conclusive answer to
the recent denials of the Russian govern
ment, which were published in the New
York Tribune about three weeks
ago. William Tallet,ipresident Of the great
Howard association of England, saws
that every effort will be made to bring this
matter before the international prison con-
gress, which will meet in st. Petersburg.
II the Russian government will permit it,
and is ready to meet the issue, I will UNI
dertake to prove to this prison congress
every charge that 1 have arrayed against it
in my articles published in The Century, or
which have been otherwise brought for
ward by, me. In ~substantiation OF these
charges. l am prepared to bring my wit.
nesses from Siberia and to defray the
whole expense. But l much fear that nv
challenge will be ignored"