The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-01-24
BUrcHERY OF ARMENIANs.
A Bostonian Says the Reports Are Noi
 Exaggerated.

Exaggerated.
 Boston, Jan 23,-In Q letter written by a Bostonian in Constantinople, re- celved here to-day the writer character izes the situation in Turkey us a cru sade Of Moslem fanaticism. Private letters, he says, which are coming to the many thousands of Armenians from the interior who are temporarily in Constantinople, and whose families are in the provinces. the reports of refugees and travellers who are in the principal places of massacre, and the more detail- ed communications of foreign eye-wit- nesses who write from personal obser- vation and inquiry together present scenes of carnage, spoliation, fanaticism and lust which appall the stoutest heart
 Five hundred square miles of terri tory" he says, "a beautiful and diversi- fled country, have been swept with a bosom of destruction, In many cases individual Armenian families, and in some cases the entire inhabitants of Armenian villages and towns, anticipat- ing by some days the storm of wrath about to burst upon their heads, gather ed together whatever money and jewels could be found, and by payment of the same to their Turkish and Kurdish neighbors, secured from them solemn promises of protection; but, alas! these people also suffered death or the loss of all their goods
 But passing by the unprovoked and pitiless slaughter of from 25,000 to 10000 Armenians, largely the well to-do, capa- ble men, the merciless plundering of the Armenian shops, stores and houses, and the multitudes of Christian girls and married women whose husbands have been slain or were away from home, who have been forced to become the wives of Turks, in less than three months time, whole districts, which for centuries have been occupied with Christian homes, have been made to as- sume the appearance of a Mohammedan land Such is the fate to which thou sands of Armenian Christians, with husbands, fathers and sons slain, in utter 'beggary and despair, have been reduced And this is the situation on which Christian Europe, in spite of the treaty of Paris, in spite of the treaty of Berlin, in spite of the Cyprus con vention, and in spite Of the recent la bored scheme Of reforms, leave their Armenian fellow Christians. Is is not a most gross betrayal?
 "A veritable crusade of Mohammedan fanaticism rules the hour. The Kurds and Circassians are tolerably sated with plunder, but the Turks in various prov inces, With Saracenic cruelty, are com polling the wretched survivors to ac- cept the hated religion of their mur- derous oppressors. Eleven Protestant preachers in the region of Harpoot, one pastor in Arabkir, one pastor in Sivas, Several priests and many Armenian Christians-men and women--have dis tinctly chosen death rather. than Islam, and have been nnercilessly slain Multi tudes of other Armenian Christians, however, have been so entirely terror ized that they have profesased theln- selves Mohammedans en liiasse. in the hope that subsequently Christian Europe would deliver them from the dreadful yoke of Mohammedanisnl. Thus whole villages and towns and whole Christian quarters in cities have been driven, like helpless sheep, into the Moslem fold.
 Does any government in Europe, does the emperor of Germany, does the president of the United States, doubt the correctness of the reports from Tur- key published in the English and Am erican press? If so, let them demand information from their own diplomatic representatives. There are multitudes of witnesses other than the lying Turk ish officials. In fact, the very land grqans, and not a thousandth part of the horrible details has been told.