The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-08
STEAD TELLS OF
 RUSSIAN DISTRESS Says Hell is Pretty Well Let
 Loose" AWFUL SCENES IN RIVAL Woman Dressed In Red, After lnoit- ing Mob for Hours and After Continued Warnings, Is
 Shot by Troops.
AWFUL SCENES IN RIVAL

Berlin, November 7.-wm. T. Stead, fresh from Russia by way of Finland and Copenhagen stopped over in Berlin today on his way to Paris. For an hour and half he poured forth his vivid impress sions of "hell pretty well let loose as he called 1t of the things that he had seen and heard and of the ghastly welter init which Russian society had drifted.
 Strange things are happening" said MT. Stead. Think of the incidents at Reval. Slime determined persons marched down the street to the town hall, followed by crowd. There the mayor and ooun- cilmen were sitting, deliberating on the situation In came our determined friends. We demand,' they said. we demand liberty, universal suffrage and the right to rule ourselves
 But said the mayor. T cannot give you these things. l would gladly send your petition to the Emperor.
 Well continued the delegates, we are delegates of a revolution and if we don't get what we want. we have decided to burn tn city. Give us 7500 roubles."
 The mayor and his colleagues thought it was better to pay the 750O roubles than l to have the city burned, so they raised
 
 ter went away promising to be very good. and they were good. But another crowd came and said: What about us; pay us to-
 This the mayor would not do, and they went away with threats of de- 1 struction.
 ReveI Has Red Virgin.
 "eThe red virgin of the French com mune was Louis Michel. Well, in Reval a certain widow named Iinde, dressed Tn scarlet from top to toe, and with an ax over her shoulder placed herself at the head of the mob. All night the revou- tionists whetted themselves up. In the meantime the governor had gotten out troops and the mob gathered in the morn ing facing the soldiers in the great square The governor called on the mob to dis- perse and said that after fifteen minutes if they did not dsperse he would order the troops to fire. Five minutes went by and the Widow Linde in red climbed lamp post and cried out encouragement and exhorted steadfast for the revolution. The soldiers began to call out 10 the people to give away as they were order ed to fire, they must do so, and that they did not want to kill anybody.
 "'KiIl himi kill him." screamed the Widow Iinde, pointing to the governor
 seyeral revolver shots were fired from the crowd, but no one was hit. Ihe gov ernor who waited to the end of the ff- teen minutes, then gave the command to fire and the Widow Linde snot tnroueh the body, fell to the ground as Baron Euxull. an eyewitness told me, like sparrow from twig.
 "One hundred and five dead persons u,ara nioIxed up from the square and thirty more died in the hospitals.
 Emperor Is Coolest Man.
 .rrhe coolest man in Russia is the Em- peror, God grant that he may keep ms seat; that the liberals may gather apout him, and that they may resist the iorces of dissolution. His authority Is shakeh' passions are loose and things are nkely to be worse There may be feariui slauahtering. AS an optimist, l think hundred thousand lives may fall. 1T were pessmistic I would say tWt mhi- lions. The situation is something hke this.
 "The police, gendarmes and cossacks have been suppressing a revolution In tha na;no of the Emperor. Suddenly, they gay. the Emperor goes over to the hb- eral sde and that he thinks more or ! those who want to vote and who are do- ing everything in the way of meeting an agitation which the police were taught to be unlawful, than he does of them. AS simple human nature the police and gem darmes say:
 Oh very well, if the Emperor's new friends act like this 1t is no concern of ours.
 And when the police are indifferent the 'hooligans' break loose and Toryism in society also breaks loose. That mass of ignorant conservatives which only thinks of killing the black hundred in Moscow, are conservatives who are of- tended by the liberals getting the upper hand. All through the Russian empire, authority, as represented by the police. cossaoks and gendarmes Is shaken, as have said, and the forces that tend to tear society apart are at work
 Cannot Depend on Army.
 MT. Stead added the army could no longer be depended upon. Several officers at Helsingfors had sent word to the lib- . erals while holding meeting that they not fire.
 "The liberals" he continued, "are un- fortunately holding back from support of the crown at a time when every man has a good coat on his back or rouble in his pocket should stand by the Emperor who has placed himself on the liberal side The liberals are unable at once to overcome their distrust. The fuller lib- critics have been granted too late. Autoc- racy lost the respect of the country dur ing the war and during the delay In | granting those liberties which the Elm pefor decided upon two months ago. The situation has been as though man who owed you a thousand pounds and who promised to pay 1t and meant to pay 1t. was dunning you for eight shillings and six pence. The thing to save Russia Is ) for the liberals to organize special con stabularies to uphold order and allow time to work out the new government ' machinery Things are about as bad as povsble, but I hope that order will emerge oil tha al h } ed into sour milk during the next three 7 months Wherever great excesses are committed they are preceded by lib- , eral consumption of alcohol"