The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-09
RISING Due TO FAMINE
RUSSIAN PEASANTS WANTED FOOD
AND FORCIBLY SEIZED 1T.
Only Burned and Ravaged Estates
when They Were Not Permitted
to Help Themselves.

LONDON. May s.-The st. Petersburg
correspondent of the Associated Press,
after a personal Investigation of the situa-
ton in southern Russia. writes from Mos
COW, under date OF Saturday, May 3, as fol-
lows:
Comparative order has been restored in
the government of Poltava and Kharkof.
but the peasants are only outwardly
quiescent. believing that the grant of a d.
vision of the lands of noblemen will be eff
fected during the coming autumn, leaving
the hardy land owners only twenty acres
and a yoke of oxen each. Authentic par
ticula-s of the disorders prevailing during
the last three weeks show they were large
ly due to extreme suffering from famine.
which was used by agitatOrs to foment a
rising. The peasants were not the only be-
levers in the issue of an imperial uksse
permitting a division of the property of the
nobility and a charitable distribution of 20
tatoes by the steward of the Duke of Meek
linburg's estate at Kharlofrka tended to
confirm this belief. The people of the
whole countryside, often led by the village
magnates. streamed to the Kharlofka and
other estates afoot. on horseback and in
wagons, demanded the keys of the pantries.
granaries and barns and carried off their
contents. Rich Cossacks suffered equally
with the noblemen. When land owners re-
fused to deliver up the keys the peasants
broke down the doors. quietly seized food
stuffs and returned home. even welI-to-do
peasants sharing in the plumber. When un-
opposed the peasants contented 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 village were already on a
strained footing with the neighboring land
owners. Violence is reported from twelve
TO fifteen villages, while three estates have
been devastated i'm the Kharkon govern
ment and forty-three in the POltava gov
ernment
ITO add to the general CONSERVATION two
hundred Cossacks arrived at Poltava after
the regular military forces had restored
two or three cases and in one instance the
peasants attacked the troops with stones.
whereupon the latter fired. killing several
persons and wounding a score, among
whom were women and children. Corporal
punishment was administered right and left
without prescriptions inquiry into the
guilt of the people logged. Some estimates
place the number of turbulent peasants as
high as $4,000.
There was a similar occurrence at Khar-
koff. whose governor general. Prince Obe-
lenski. was particularly severe. Gen. Eu-
gene Observation-Disclosures was among
the sufferers. His estate at Mechek was
ruined and he himself was seized and
beaten. He is still i'll from the effects of
the treatment he received.
"As an example OF the extent to which
The ranks of the ADMINISTRATOR villagers
are swollen by the returns of UNEMPLOYED
factory workers. il is pointed out that one
iron works which heretofore employed 12.OOO
TO 10000 people, is now employing ONLY 500
for three days a week"