The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1895-07-18
Terrible Treatment Given
by Turkey.
A SEVERE STORM IN THE EAST
The st. Louis Expected to Make Good
Time on Her Present Trip--News
From the Wires.


Press correspondent :in Armenia)-The
prison of Van, where the Armenian
prisoners are confined is located under
the shadow of the city wall and at u
point where the ground is so low as to
receive the drainage of the rest of the
city. Like the other buildings of the
city it is built of sun dried brick laid in
the mud. The prison is only one-story
building, and with no provision for
kee ping it dry.
The prison consists of six long roomz,
three on each side of a common passage
way, into which they open. Each room
is about II feet wide and from 30 to 40
feet long, and has two windows at the
outer end and two small windows and a
door ut the inner end opening into the
passage. During the last winter so to 40
men were crowded into each of these
rooms, sleeping on the floor, row along
eacn wall, so that if their feet were a
little more than ordinarily extended the
two rows would not interfere with the
other. Sometimes there were % men in
each row, allowing only about 19 inches
Tor cacn person.
The five small cells mentioned are
damp, dark and entirely unwarmed for
winter. A prisoner, Karakeen Paghesh-
tecan by name, was kept in one the cells
IA consecutive months with foot-fetters
ali the time, and with hand and neck
fetters much of the time. Afterwards he
was removed to one of the inner cells,
which are even worse, and where he now
is. He was fogged on an average of
once day.
Apart from the actual butchering of
Ssssoun, the most painful feature of the
situation is the position of Armenian
women. One cannot investigate this
phase of the subject without feelings of
rage and horror. After the most careful
personal inquiry the correspondent is
able to state that in hundreds of villages
in Armenia there is hardly one woman,
old or young, who is not from time to
time made the victim of passon of tie
Kurds and Turks. In all the villages of
Armenia, the Christian women, both old
and young, are absolutely at the mercy
of their Kurdish and Turkish height bors.
This is not the case in the larger cities of
Van, Bitils, Moush and Erzeroum, be-
cause in these cities the large Armenian
population is in itself protection 20 the
women but in the villages where the
Armenians are in the minority, protec-
tion is not possible, and the women are
at the beck and call of any Turk or
Kurd who happens to take fancy to
them. Moreover, this state of things is
said to be well known to the Turkish
government.
II is the custom of the government to
sell to the highest bidder the tax privi-
leges of the various villages, the pur-
chaser having the right to collect all OF
the taxes from the people. In very
many cases the mum ber of young Arm
enlan women in a village has a great
deal to do with the price paid for the tax
privilege. When the public sale is made
of the tax privilege it is no uncom mon
thing for the auctioneer to call out in
the market-place that so many girls are
available in the village. When man
has purchased the tax privilege of a viii
lage, he considers that he also bought
and paid for the women of the village
and any attempt on the part of the hus.
bands, brothers. or fathers to resent this
Interpretation of the law is looked upon
asohigh treason, punis liable with death
7Sf taae Armenian men object to this they