Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1902-05-09
RUSSIA FACING CRISIS
Restoration Of Order Is Believed to
BE Only Temporary.
BRUTAL WORK BY COSSACKS.
Peasants Were FlOgged Indiscrim-
inately In Consequence of Recent
Risings In Which Large Estates
We're Destroyed and Looted.

London, May 9.-After personal in
vestigation of the situation in southern
Russia st. Petersburg correspondent
writes from Moscow as follows:
"Comparative order has been restor
ed in the governments Of Poltava and
Kharkoff, but the peasants are only
outwardly qufescent, believing that the
grant of division of the lands Of the
noblemen will be effected during the
coming autumn, leaving the hereditary
landowners only twenty acres and a
yoke Of oxen each.
"Authentic particulars Of the disor-
ders prevailing during the last three
weeks show they were largely due to
extreme suffering from famine. which
was utilized by agitatOrs to foment a
rising The peasants were not the only
believers in the issue of an imperial
ukase permitting division of the prop
erty of the nobility, and charitable
of the Duke of Mecklenburg's estate at
Kharloffka tended to confirm this be.
lief. The people Of the whole country.
side, often led by the village magnates,
streamed to the Kharloffka and other
estates afoot, on horseback and in
wagons demanded the Keys or the
pantries granaries and barns and car
ried Off their contents. Rich Cossacks
suffered equally with the noblemen
When landowners refused to deliver
up the keys, the peasants broke down
the doors, quietly seized foodstuffs and
returned home, even well to do peas
ants sharing in the plumber.
Fine Homes Burned and Destroyed.
When unopposed, the peasants con.
tented themselves with supplying their
immediate needs, but when baked
they burned and destroyed carried off
live stock and desolated estates Most
of the difficulties occurred where the
inhabitants of the villages were al
ready on strained footing with the
neighboring landowners. Violence is
reported from twelve to fifteen vii
lagos, while three estates have been
devastated in the Kharkoff govern
ment and forty-three in the Poltava
government.
ITO add to the general CONSERVATION,
200 Cossacks arrived at Poltava after
the regular military forces had restor-
ed order. The troops fired on the peo-
pie in two or three cases, and in one in
stance the peasants attacked the
troops with stones, whereupon the lat
ter fired, killing several persons and
wounding score, among whom were
women and children. Corporal pun
ishment was administered right and
left without prescriptions inquiry in
to the guilt Of the people logged. Some
estimates place the number of turbu.
lent peasants as high as 10000.
"There was similar occurrence at
Kharkoff, whose governor general
Prince Obolensky, was particularly Sc
we're. General Eugene Michalovich-
Doukhovsky was among the sufferers.
His estate at Mechek was ruined, and
he himself was seized and beaten. He
Is still ill from the effects Of the treat
ment he received.
' "As an example Of the extent to
which the ranks Of the famine stricken
villagers are swollen by the return of
factory workers 1t is point
ed out that one iron works which here
tofore employed $4,000 to 10000 people
Is now employing only 5000 for three
days week."