The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1905-01-22
STOE |; J. !. Il NJ. TIME
TO CHILDREN G | !. !.
Heroic Defei,derSof Port 4 rtllurI
Was Also Its Santa
Claus.
SEVERE 10 sId 1.l.I', il;I s.
0l.ifc iii the Besieged Town vi RS RS
I scribcd by the, Comln 7tll
der's Servant.
sT PETERSBURG. Jan. 81.

+ a =.
There has Just returned to his nome ION IN
yassili Ostrov Nicholas Savin, who from I ON
4 January TIL October acted ms 'denstc h's' n
K az military servant TO the man whose whose
4 ina,1e Is now in all Russian mouths. S;lHlh
,,5lost n leg as the result of a shell cxpi 70
slnn.5nnd was sent home by Stoessel via
q Chefu. IA q. !. d,
4 .,The general; he said. .'sent me home
I'd / INV own request. II was 10 use 70 t ny
fortress. TO people who served MIN faisn !,
. YullyI he was kind and indulgent-----ohi!'
STRIKERS feared him.
Money for Brave Men.
Ut wns the commander who kept the
{ defense Of The fortress going. md no one
I else. !, 6 III /. \. \, u
Tie never changed hls clothes for five Nv
,dnvs during the fierce fighting in August.
Whenever he saw n particularly brave pray g
man he asked his name, and next DAY tne
ma n received present. A siberian named q
ECiorbatcheff received ten different pres
ents Of money for brave exploits. lie was was
killed the day before ! left.
.rrhere was creche in the town LOT
children whose parents had been killed or
were in the hospital. Stoessel VISITED y
4 n,very week, and brought sweets IN his
rockets. The men began to like him only
after the land fighting began. They called allied
him worm eater because In one speech
he said, Port Arthur must hold out even
II It has to eat worms. II
Suffered More Than All.
nFor four months l was in personal at
tendance upon the general He worked
absolutely all the time. sleeping only
about three hours day, during Slulls, and
not at all when attacks were going on.l
Nobody suffered so much as he, and he
became Quit e an old man.. so far as ap-
pearance went But he was perfectly
we'll Madame Stoessel used to insist
upon his eating buckwheat CRUEL a peas
ant dish, which he much disliked, on the
ground that it contained iron
1.-THE general made a pra ctlce OF ex-
posing himself to danger, even when there
was no need But he did not allow junior
officers to do that. and issued more than
one order against 1t. The fortress, he
said, was kept intact by the men inside II.
and It was crime to expose oneself un-l
necessarily.
Madame Stoessel's Ability.
K s"The generalsha' (Madame StoesseD,
would have had right to succeed If her
husband had been killed. She knew
everything about the forts. and was quite
capable to take command Of an army
corps. When she returned to headquarters
after succoring the wounded, she used
to give the officers precise accounts of
the state of things, never emitting de-
tall. g II
StoesseFs punishments were not as sc-
we're as the newspapers say. They were
to begin with, but after the first month
ofS$thes siege there was practically no:
crime in the town. ltl
.'Before left Port Arthur the general
handed me 400 rubles. and stated that he
would give me a pension. y He treated all
his servants well, but worked them al
most to death. The theory upon which
the defense was carried out was that
every one should live up to the COM
mander's Standard