The record-union., 1894-11-17
Special to the REcoRD-UN1oS.

! LONDON, Nov. 16.-The Chairman of
the Armenian Patriotic Association. G..
Hagopian, has sent the following letter.
received from an American, whose name
Is not given, because it would jeopardize
his life, to the Earl of Kimberly, the Sec
retary OF State for Foreign Affairs. The
letter Is accompanied by one from Hago-
plan, IN which he says: II have no rea-
son to doubt the authenticity of the de-
tails. They will be borne out by fuller
official reports which have been or will
soon be received from the British agents
IN Armenia. The events reported are the
| re-enactment of the Bulgarian atrocities.
| with all their most sIckening details of
| fendish lust and atrocious cruelty on
unarmed Christians and defenseless. in
nocent women and children, deliberately
| planned and ruthlessly executed under
orders received from Constantinople."
Hagopian concludes by stating that the
time has come to abolish in toto the ex-
| listing administration of Armenia and re-
place IL by another regime approved by
| Great Britain and other signatories of the
| treaty OF the Berlin and worked under
their immediate supervision.
| Inc letter OF the American thus pre-
| faced is dated Bltlis, October 9th. After
| saying that the Magnate appears to be a
| second Nero, the writer continues: .'The
so-called rebellion of the Armenians in
! 1893 was u got-up affair, for the repres-
sion of which the Chief Magnate got a
! decoration. This year the Kurds carried
! oil Armenian oxen, and the Armenlans
! appealed Tor their restoration but were
refused. n fight ensued, and two Kurds
| were killed and three wounded The
| kurds Immediately carried their dead
(
Armenian soldiers had overrun the land.
killing and plundering the kurds. This
| was preteXt for maSsing the troops
! from far and near. The troops were
commanded by q Pasha and a Marshal,
and were hurried to the district.
! The Pasha IS said to have hung from
| his breast, after reading it to his soldiers.
an order from Constantinople to cut the
/ Armenians up root and branch, and ad-
! Juring them TO do so ii their loved their
! King and Government.
"NearIy all of these things were related
| here, and the soldiers who took part in
| the horrible carnage claim that the Kurds
| did most Of the work, while thew only
| Obeyed the orders of others. 1t is said
! that 100 fell TO each of them to dispose Of.
| No compassion was shown to age or sex.
even by the regular soldiers, not even
when the victims fell supplicant at their
| feet.
J
| fate as even the darkest ages Of darkeued
| Africa hardly witnessed, for the women
and tender babes might at least have had
! a chance for life OF slavery, White their
! Womanhood were but mockery before
/ the cruel lust that ended its debauch by
! stabbing women to death with bayonet
| while tender babes were impaled with
! the same weapon on their dead mothers
! breasts, or perhaps seized by the hair to
! have their heads chopped Oft with the
sword.
lin one place 300 or 400 women, after
being forced to servile purposes by the
merCIleSS soldiers, were hacked to pieces
| by sword and bayonet in the valley be-
| low. In another place some 200 weeping
and waiiing women begged for compass
| sion, falling at the commanders feet but
the blood-thirsty wretch, after ordering
| their violation, directed his soldiers to
| dispatch them in a similar way. II an
other place sixty young brides and the
! more attractive girls were crowded into
| church and, after violation, were slaugh-
! tered, and human gore was soon flowing
| from the church floor.
| "At another place large company, un-
der the leadership Of their priests, fell
! down before them, begging for compass
| sion and averring that they had nothing
to do with the culprits. But all to no
purpose. All were called to one place
and the proposal was made to several of
the more attractive women to change
| their faith, in which event their lives
were to be spared. They said, 'Why
should we deny Christ? We are no more
| than these pointing to the mangIed
forms of their husbands and brothers.
Kill US to- And they did so.
"a great effort was made to save one
beautiful GIRL but three or four quarreled
over her, and she sank down like her
sisters.
lone or more Consuls have been or
dered away to investigate the matter If
the Christians, instead of Turks, reported
these things in the city of Bitlis and the
region where l have been touring, the case
would be different. But now we are
compelled to believe it. The magnates
are having papers circulated, and are try
ing to compel Christians to sign them
expressing satisfaction that justice has
been dealt to the rebels, and thanking the
King and the chief magnate. The Chris
tians of Bitlis will not sign, though it Is said
in some of the outlying districts Chris
tlans have signed. sIhe circulars have not
been offered to Protestants, and as yet the
Protestants have not been thrust into
chains or blackmailed much, though
lately things are beginning to look that
way"
Another letter says some of the regular
soldiers themselves admit that they
killed hundred persons each in a fiend-
I
was followed by the bayonet. Twenty or
thirty Armenian villages, it would seem,
have been wholly destroyed, and some
persons were put to death with kerosene
IN their own houses.
OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF THE TROUBLE.
CONSTANTINoPLE, Nov. 16.-The fol-
lowing official account of the Armenian
trouble was issued to-day:
Some Armenian brigands, provided
with arms of foreign make, joined an in
surgent Kurd tribe for the purpose of
committing excesses. They burned and
devastated several Mussulman villages.
AS an instance of the ferocity of the Ar
menians, it is reported that they burned
alive a Mussulman notable. Regular
| troops were sent to the scene to protect
| peaceable inha abItants against these depre-
dations. The Ottoman troops not only pro-
| tected and respected the submissive por-
! ton of the population and the women
| and children, but they re-established or
| der and tranquility. 1t is not truo that
| the Kurds seized the furniture. effects
and cattle of the fugitive Armenians.
| The latter took their effects to the mounts
aims before revolving.
1.-The Armenian women at present with
| the Kurds belong to the families of the
| brigands, and went of their own accord
with their husbands to the insurgent
Kurds. Respecting the villages alleged
to have been destroyed, 1t was the Ar
merians who carried OF all their belong
| ings before the coming o-ethe brigands,n