The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1896-06-04
MOHAMMEDAN ATROCITIES.
THE BARBARITIES PRAC-
TICED IN TURKEY
DURING RECENT REIGN OF Terror.
The Most Blood-Curdling Barbarities
Perpetrated Upon the Oppressed
Christians-Many Were
Cruelty Tortured.

facts, by III. II. Van Meter. are few
from the thousands established by in
controyertible evidence, and confirmed
by blue books, consular reports and I'M
impeachable testimony of eye wit
nesses, Notwithstanding the unspeakable
shame that those who were so brave as
to testify in the face of almost certain
Imprisonment, torture and death, to
these terrible truths; before European
and Turkish consuls and commissions
were deserted by 1.-The great powers" and
left defenseless to be imprisoned, tor
tured and put to death by every devilish
device which demons incarnate could
contrive while the christian nations
looked on in criminal acquiescence read
ing the bloodiest, blacklist record that
has ever blotted the pages of human
history, in guilty silence when the guns
on the greatest ornaments the world has
ever seen should be laundering up to the
very throne of The Eternal against these
worse than 'hellish horrors which no NOR
tai mind could begin to imagine in all
their awful blending of tears and blood
and agony and death with which it is
written by bloody sword and bayonet,
dripping dagger and CORY spear deadly
ball and cruel blows torments and tor
lures too terrible to tell, crimes that boil
the blood to dream of, wrongs that wiring
the heart to think of, horrors that sicken
the soul to hear of, deeds no decent
tongue could speak of, by demons who
disgrace our race and desecrate our age
and damn us if Indifferent.
Truly no pencil could picture, no pen
could depict, no tongue could tell the ter
rible details of these awful tragedies of
modern martyrdom.
In the midst of the maddest maelstrom
of death and destruction that has ever
darkened the ages; as Mohammedon de-
moniacs, with their wild delrum of
devilish delight, in obedience to orders of
the sultan, seemed determined to exter-
inmate the Christians of Sassoun, this
scene occurred, as sworn to by eye wit
nesses-it being but one of innumerable
instances of the like:
An Armenian mother, a pure, Christian
woman, assaulted by the Turkish sol
them for the sake of her unborn babe to
spare her. Allah, himself, will reward
you richly for this mercy shown to a
woman in my stated" she cried.
is it boy or girl?' they jeeringly |
ANSWER one shouted.
,'"How can she tell?" exclaimed an
other.
.'Of course she can; can tell myself |
on it,
Instantly the bet was taken. the |
stakes put up, and the pleading mother |
mercilessly torn open, amid their yels |
OF tendish laughter, to settle the ques-
tlon, when the wager was raid, while |
babe and mother suffered so and died |
because she bore the name of Christ.
SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENTS.
Another scene ut Sassoun which gives |
MS a glimpse of that awful carnival of |
hellish cruelty shows the soldiers, drunk
en- with their bloody debauch, betting on |
now many helpless Christian children |
sword
bet you ten tshireks | can cut clean
through the nccks of four Christian pup
pes at one stroke of my scimitar,' cried |
one.
Done shouted crowd of Turkish
regulars, as they snatched four tender
chlldren from the arms of their frantic
mothers and bound them amid heart
remGlhg screams, one neck above another.
The brave Turk who had made the bet.
touched the neck of the nearest babe
with his steel to measure his stroke. His
bright scimitar flashed for an instant
above them and then four little lifeless
forms quivered in the blood-stained dust
before their mothers eyes. to whom such
a death itself would have been most I'M
speakaDiy more merciful than such an
agonizing sight.
Turkish soldiers took delight in placing
long lines of Christian children in files To-
be fired at as targets. to see how many
little helpless. homeless, hungry inno-
cents they could kill or wound or cripple
for life with one cruel shot, while others
had their jaws wrenched asunder and
still others were held up by their hair
to be decaptated or deformed for life,
before their brOken-hearted mothers.
Many women, with babes unborn,
were ripped open and their babies carried
about upon spear points in sport
THE UNUTTERABLE SHAME.
IN one village about sixty young brides,
with the most beautiful girls. were
crowded into their Christian church and
kept there for days to satiate the lust
of their tormetors. till they were done to
death, and their blood streamed from the
doorway into the street.
In another. the most attractive women
of the place were promised to be spared
If they would deny their faith, but point
ing to the dead bodies of their fathers.
husbands and brothers before them they
replied:
"Why should be deny Christ? We are
no better than they. Kill us, tool"
So they shared the same shameful fate
of thousands of Christian women and
girls of Armenia.
Their natural defenders having been
disarmed by the imperial
government in preparation for this
wholesale robbery. outrage and slaught-
er, Christian women and children were
hunted like wild beasts, after the loss of
their fathers. husbands and brothers, to
be turned over by thousands in obedience
to imperial orders. to serve the brutal
lust of their Mohammedan prosecutors
till these were tired of them. when those
who had survived were hacked to death
by swords and bayonets or left to linger
and die.
Bands of hundreds of starving. nearly I
naked. terrorized women whose hus-
bands. fathers and brothers had been ,
imprisoned or slaughtered and homes de- {
sought mercy of commanding
officers of troops of the sultan in vain.
In answer to their tears and entreaties
10 no |