The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-03-29
ARMENIAN ATROCITIES.
FURTHER CONFIRMATION OF THE
DEVILIsH DEEDS.
Grimes Almost Too Horrible to
FIrink OF, Committed With No
More Hesitancy Than a White
Man Would Breathe.

London, March 29.-The Times pub
fishes a long report on the Armenian
atrocities written by a competent and
trustworthy man who made a personal
investigation on the spot. This report
was written in January, but only ar
rived in London yesterday.
The writer says he is convinced that
both in 1898 and 1894 the Turkish gov
eminent gave both oral and written
orders to the Kurds to attack the Ar
menians, promising them the booty
and relieving them of responsibility
for the consequences. In the first at
tackS made upon them, the ArmenianS
defeated the KurdS. Undoubtedly but
for Turkish help, the Kurds would have
been unable to have gained a perman-
ent victory. The Kurds in the earlier
skirmishes did not harm women and
children. Even when melted by the
Turks, they did little in comparison
with the latter.
The account proceeds to confirm the
pit incident and the report of the gov
ernor of Bitlis reading the. Sultan's
decree ordering the Kurds TO destroy
the disaffected villages, sparing moth
ing, for their sultan and prophet. This
occurred about the middle of August,
and the masSacres which followed beg
gars all description. The occidentals
of the nineteenth century cannot COM
prehend it.
Youths were bound, covered with
brushwood and burned alive.
Others were hacked to pieces.
AT Shenig, house filed with fifty
men, women and children was set on
fire and all were cremated.
The officers forced their men Ito acts
Of cruelty from which the latter
shrank.
A young priest at Dalvoorig per-
yield. They were ordered to dig a
trench, and when enough earth had
been thrown up, all were hacked to
pieces and cast into the trench.
Priests suffered horrible deaths. One
was thrown into the air and allowed to
fall on a number of bayonets that had
been stuck upright in the ground.
A correspondent who had recently
made a special investigation of the
atrocities attached great Importance to
the statement of a Kurd, who killed
many innocent women and children in
SaSsoun."
The correspondent took this mans
deposition before respectable nom
Armenian witnesses, and from this
deposition he telegraphed the follow
ing blood-curdling extract.
''The Turkish soldiers took little chill
dren by the feet and dashed them
against stones. 1 saw an Armenian
priest tortured by squeezing his neck.
gouging out his eyes and tearing off
his flesh with pinchers. We hate that;
we only stab or bayOnet or cut off
heads. We dislike needless pain.
''I saw Turkish sergeant bind an
old Armenian head downward to two
or three branches and slowly cut him
through with an ak.
''Armenians who implored protection
and surrendered were butchered at
night.
''The Armenians were marched in,
their hands tied and they were then
bayoneted and flung into the pit. None
of those were dead who were in the pit.
az saw the soldiers take a woman,
stand around her joking and making
bets as to the size of her unborn child.
She was then cut open and the money
was paid to the scoundrel who had
guessed rightly"
The correspondent telegraphed the
details of this revolving deed, but the
paper suppressed them, as being too
horrible for publication.
Continuing, the Kurd said:
1.-The Kurds killed people with bull
let's and daggers, but the Turks de-
lighted in torture. They put some TO
death with scissors, cutting them and