The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1895-02-03
NOT so BAD AFTER ALL
Such Is the Latest News Concerning
the Armenian Atrocities.
A REPORTER GOES THERE
The Story He Tells Is That tho
Poor, Gentle Turk Has Been
Assailed and Abused
Most Shockingly.

Copyrighted 1895 by the Associated Press.
LONDON, Feb. "A letter has been re-
celved here from the special correspond
ent of the associated press, who was sent
to Armenia to investigate tho reported
Armenian atrocities, and who ut present
is in Armenia. For reasons that will DO
readily understood, the name OF the cor
respondent is withheld, but he is n news
paper man well known in America, and
he was instructed to make an impartial
investigation of the stories told of Turkish
cruelty.
The associated press correspondent
spent a week in Constantinople, during
which time he investigated the reports
current there, and continued his journey.
His first letter has just reached here, after
having been posted by n trusted messen-
ger at Tiflls, Russia. 1t contains the first
authentic news from Armenia direct, and
says:
"Whatever secrets may lie under tho
snow of the Armenian mountains IL seems
beyond dispute, from what | have heard
from many lips, that the published stories
of feroclous butchery and red horror IN
Armenian villages have at least a reason
able foundation of truth and that any
change, authorized by further investiga-
ton, will deal more with the numbers
than with tho degree of the horror" But
| from what the correspondent of the asso-
| ciated press says in the latter part of his
| letter, there are two sides to the Armenian
story, as he remarks:
"But no matter what light we throw
upon the spasmodic wickedness of the
| Turk or upon the ingenious deviltry OF
| the revolutionary conspirators, we lind
that it is the innocent that suffer most.
| The Turk declares that the Armenians
have inflicted shocking outrages upon
| Turkish men and women, and from what
| is already known of the conspiracy meth
ods. il is quite likely that the assertion is
true. For instance, it is reported
that as means of melting the
| Turks to commit outrages that will
bring down upon them the wrath of tho
a civilized world, the Armenians have
thrust gun cartridges into the bodies OF
living Turkish men and women and have
exploded them, and that in the case OF
one man, a hole was made just below the
bones of the chest for the insertion of q
quantity of gun powder which was ther
ignited as n sort of bomb. These facts
are known at the embassies at Constan
tinople and probably they have boer
transmitted in reports to the various gov
ernments.'
The correspondent also remarks: The
impartial truth of the Sassoun massacre
will probably never be known, for th'
dead tell no tales. A careful sitting oi
all the facts obtainablo from trustworth,
sources IN Constantinople, Sassoun
Kerasund, Trebizonde and Bitlis indi
Gates that this is what happened:
"Certain Armenian peasants, to tn
number of several thousand, were tend
ing their herds and flocks IN their summe
pastures in the Sassoun mountains aloni
the borders of kur listan. They wer,
living in mere temporary villages whIc
they inhabited during tho summer season
their winter homes being down the va
leys. They were under contract to- defen
them against the raids of cattl
stealers and Kurdish bands.
short time before the villagers wor
, ready to return TO their homes IN the va
: leys with their fattened cattle, band q
Kurdish bandits, industriously searchn
, fora winters supply OF provisions. raidc
. their stock. The villagers and their kurt
ish protectors made n vigorous defens,
They would have ended it. but before tn
! fighting was over the Turkish governmer
S came into the affair, and then the re.
1 trouble began"