The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-04
1HE TURK KEEPS IT UP.
Pillaglng Armenian Villages, Killing Men
 and Itav shing Women.

tween Gurun and Chemerig twenty seven Armenian villages are pillaged and burned Thirteen Villages, 5 or 6 hours distant from GhemeseS, such as Dendil, Boorhan, Ilkmen, Karageel, Lis anii, Kayapoona,et etc. ,are likewise plum dered and ruined. Boorhan was attacked five times and Tekmen seven times. The raiders carried the plunder from Dendil for three days continuously. They have even carried away the old mats and wooden spoons. No clothes, no bedding, no kitchen utensils and nothing to eat are left to the surviving villagers. They had to live on herbs which they cooked in tins which had contained the petroleum used by the enemy to burn their houses In many villages the contents of granaries which the plunderers could not carry away were spoiled with petroleum and filth 50 as to make it uneatable.
 In the district of Tonnooz the Arme- nian villages, especially Kantavos, Kaz-
 
 burned, the male inhabitants were butchered and young women were rav- ished. Some os the villages were en- tirely ruined, so that there is no sign now that there were villages once. No place inhabited by Armenians in this district has escaped except Talas and Chemenek In the alter place the local Turks joined the A5menians to drive back the raiders, wlo, however, have carried away about 1000 sheep and cat tie and about 100 horseloads of wheat and flour from the neighboring mills.
 The bishop of Caesaria gives the fol- lowing figures as the result of the pil- lage and massacre on October 31 in that city: Number Of killed, 349; wounded 190: number of young brides and un- married girls rayished, 50; houses burn ed, 27; houses plundered, AT; shops pill laged, 250. Some of the ravished young women are not yet to be found. Some of them have been brought back one by one.
 No Christian as yet Armenian or Greek, dares to open his shop in the city of Caesaria, despite the assurances the authorities are giving to the people that the plundered goods will be found and brought back to their owners Judging from the wounded, 1t appears that all kinds of weapons and instru- ments were used, such as axes, sickels, daggers, meat axes, etc.
 ''The first wounded person took care of was an old man. who had large wound made with a meat axe on the a1y ', ie,, ;,,a T reaching to the bones. Besides that there were seven or eight other wounds about his head and face. He lived if teen days and died In great agony. His wife and son were also wounded severe ly, and his two young daughters were ravished and brought back.
 T know another woman, whose hus- band had died at Nigde some twenty days before the massacre at Caesaria and l was wondering how to let her know the sad news, when her house was attacked, herself killed and her three young daughters ravished. Of these only two have been brought back; the one most needed is still lost She was educated in the Tallas mission school and had been a teacher in Nigde for two years. MT. Avedis Yeretizian, a medical doctor and pastor, his wife eldest son and ihrother-in-law, were ruthlessly butehered and thrown into the flames of their burning house be- cuse they resisted the raiders. The Turks used thirty tins of petroleum to burn his house, which was quite a strong building, and in their efforts to save it the inmates exhausted all the water in the cistern,
 In order to give an idea of the feroc- ity shown by the Turkish mob, the fol- lowing incidents may serve as ex- amples: The wife of a Turkish military captain happened to be looking from a window when the massacres were go- in.g on in the city. She was so much af- fected by the scenes that she lost her head, and ever since that day her only words have been, o, savage Turks! o, beastly Turksn
 In the house there were four young women. The Turks attacked the house and carried away two, leaving the other two to be carried away next time The two young women, seeing that there was no way of escape, made a fire in the taEdir Oriental oven dug in the floor of the room) and threw themselves into the flames and were burned alive The raiders, coming back, were very much disappointed to find them dead and went away cursing"
 The United Press correspondent at Ccnstantinople sends the following in- formation:
 Authentic reports have been received from the districts of Spargerd, Mamar- dank, Khizan and Gargar in the Bit lis yilyet to the effect that a wholesale conversion of the Armenian popula tion to the ranks of the Islam has taken place there. During the recent reign Of terror several shieks of Khizan, assist ed by their hordes of fanatical follow CTS, among them at least one officer known to the writer, ravaged that whole region and simply terrorized the helpless people in declaring their faith in Mohamned.
 First of all they murdered Sahag Vantabed, thus cutting off the last hope the people had They fayed the body, filled the skin with straw, and hung it on a tree in front of the beauti- ful monastery, which for twenty-six years he had occupied and defended at the daily risk of his life. The official figures in the possession of an ecclesias- tic prelate of these districts gives the number of converts to Islam as 800 fam lilies, which would mean at least 4,000 individuals.