Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-12-05
DEBAUcHERY OF RUSSIANS.
Much Drunkenness and Insolence Among soldiers-suffering
 of the Wounded.

The correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph at St, Petersburg sends some lurid pictures of matters at the front. At Harbin, where the troops rest in order to prepare for active work, vodka, cards and coarse pleasures, he says, are the prepara- tions that most of them make. He quotes a general order of the day is- sued by Gen. Volkoff, which says: Drunken soldiers are met at every hands turn on the streets, as we'll as at the railway station. Many who have been inso1ent and disobedient have been court-martialed."
 A Russian correspondent thus fills in the generals sketch: I had scarcely quilted the train at Liaoyang when the wounded began to arrive. Gradually the moaning of the bleeding soldiers grew in volume till it dead ened the din of the station. More and more the atmosphere became satu- rated with the peculiar smell of blood khown only on the battlefield.
 'But this melancholy picture had no sobering effect upon group of ele- gant, dandit1ed Cossack officers who had just arrived from St. Petersburg. Five paces from the dead and dying they sat merrily drinking champagne and fiaYoring 1t with obscene jests. Only in war are such contrasts pos sfb1e. Here men cease to wear masks and show themselves as they are. You note the arrival of officers who are lean and wasted from hunger and hardships, and cheek by jowl with these you witness the orgies of half drunken men fauItlessIy dressed, hear the pop of champagne bottles, the laughs that greet ribald jests and the requests of, painted women who even at this supreme moment try to wheedle tipsy officers out of their last rubles."
 ''It is to be regretted" writes M. Danchenko, the leading Russian cor respondent, 'tthat some officers on the way to join their regiments go so far as to treat Sisters of Charity as they are accustomed to treat women of the class that follows the rear of an army
 The correspondent of the Telegraph goes on to say that the commissariat is supposed to be better than during 
 from the private letters from officers and the revelations of correspondents it could hardly be worse. The corre- spondent of the Viedemosti tells the following incident: For three days we have had nothing to eat" said a soldier to the correspondent ''Here, take your fill" replied the correspond ent. "I cannot eat here,' said the sol- dier. "Why not?" asked the corre- spondent. There is an officer with me who is worse than myself" re- piled the soldier. Well, call him, too," said the correspondent. "He won't come" said the soldier. "He is ashamed, but if you let me take him food, he will be grateful"
 An officer writes that it is mem- bers of the Red Cross and other so- cieties that are succoring the wound ed who have frequently to feed the soldiers on active service. The head delegate of the Red Cross society states in letter received at St. Petersburg that the troops at the front are suf- and clothing. The Red Cross society distributes bread and tea and timed meats to soldiers in battle, and boots and overcoats come from the same source, and not from the commits sariat.
 Tn a letter to his wife captain at the front says: 'tWe officers cannot lie down at night even after a day of killing fatigue"