Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1894-11-22

rom Blk to Ten Thousand p.rxon
."ciua'ng Women and Children
arc by Soldier, Ac,,,r
under Orders From ConstaptinonIe
h"nuon' o 1S.-The chairman of
,ne Armenian Patriotic association. G.
.iasopln, has sent the followirr let-
'er' received froH an Armenian whose
name Is not given because 1t would
,eopafdlze his life, to the earl OF Kim
very the secretary of state for for
( affairs. The letter is accom-
panied by II from Hagopin In which
he says:
nave no reason to doubt the au-
thehtlclty Of the details. They will
oe horne out by fuller official reports
"nlch have been or will o be re-
fl'ed from the British agents in
armenia. The events reported are
tue fe-enactment of the Bulgarian
a'rocitles with all their most sickening
ae'aiis or tendish lust and atrOcious
sFucity on unarmed Christians and de-
tehseleSs, innocent women and chill.
lfeil, deliberately planned and ruth
tessly executed under orders received
from Constantinople."
tiasoplan concludes by saying that
the time has come to abolish in toto
The existing administration of Ar
Unenla and replace it by another
regime approved by Great Britain and
other signatOries OF the treaties Of
Berlin and worked under their i'm
mediate supervision.
The letter Of the Armenian thus pre-
faced is dated Bitlis, Oct. 8. After
saying that the chief magnate appears
to be 4 second Nero, the writer con-
tinues:
The so-callad rebellion of the Ar
menians in 1893 was a got-up affair
FOR the repression of which the chief
magnate got a decoration. This veal
the kurds carried Off Armenian oxen
and the Armenians' appeal for their
restoration was refused. A fight ell
sued. Two Kurds were killed and
three were wounded. The Kurds i'm
nediately carried their dead before the
governor, declaring that the Armeni-
II had overrun the land, killing and
plundering the Kurds.
IL hASIcu IL ttCleAl lOE lllNSS~
Ing the troops from far and near. The
troops were commanded by n pasha
and a marshal and were hurried to
the district. The pasta Is said to have
hung from his breast. after reading it
to his soldiers, an order from Constan-
tinOple to cut the ArmenianS up root
and branch, and abjuring them to do
so If they loved their king and their
government.
Nearly all these things were related
here and there by soldiers who took
part in the horrible carnage. Some of
them weeping, claim that the Kurds
did more and declare that they only
obeyed the orders OF others.
at is said that 100 fell to each Of
them to dispose of. No compassion
was shown to age or sex W. by the
regular soldiers, not eel when the
victims fell suppliant at their feet.
"Six to ten thousand persons met
such a fate as even the darkest ages
of darkened Africa hardly witness, for
there women and tender babes might
ct least have had a chance of n life
f slavery while here wcmanhCod anc
tnnocency were but a mockery before
the cruel lust that ended its debauch
by stabbing ONE to death with the
bayonet, while tender babes Were i'm
paled with the same weapon on their
dead mothers breasts or, perhaps,
seized by the hair to have their heads
Topped off with the sword.
"In one place 300 or 400 women,
after being forced to serve vile pur-
poses by the merciless soldiers, were
hacked to pieces by sword and bayo-
net IN the valley below. In another
place some 300 weeping and wailing
women begged for compassion, falling
Of the commanders feet. but the blood
thirsty wretch, after ordering their vio-
Iation. directed his soldiers to dis
patch them In q similar way. In an
other place some sixty young brides
and the more attractive girls were
crowded into q church, and after vio-
lation were slaughtered and human
gore was seen flowing from the church
door.
"At another place still, n large COM
pany under the lead OF their priest,
fell down before them, begging for
compassion and %averring that they
had nothing to do with the culprits.
But all TO no purpose. All were called
to another place and the proposal was
made to several of the more attractive
women to change their faith, IL which
case their lives were to be spared.
They said: why should we deny
Christ? We are no more than these
pointing to the mangled forms OF
their husbands and brothers-'kill us
too and they did o l..
Another letter says that some or the
regular soldiers themselves admit that
they killed 100 persons each in n fiend-
ish manner and that rape was fol-
lowed by the Dayonet. Twenty or
thirty Armenian villages, 1t would
seem, have been wholly destroyed and
some persons were burned 10 death
with kerosene in their own houses.
IL Cures Consumption.