The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-06-17
IVAN, A TERRIBLE RULER

Moscow Correspondent New York World. HIGH above the simmering minarets and the nine-domed Cathedral of A St. Basil circled the crows. For time they perched on caves and window lodges and then, as if by vulturSs sig nal, winged down to the snow covered plaza at the foot of the Bloody Stair case. Here one does not mention the thrice-repeated tragedies of these sixty limestone steps. It were discreet to be mute Tipped when bayonets point to and sent hence by friendly hands. And what a story 1t is
 Ivan the Terrible, the Nero of his time, who was brutal from love of brutality, lived within the Kremlin. He became a czar at the age of 3. To fit him for the exercise, in their way, of the absolute authority which was to be his, relatives schooled the lad to rob and torture. He was an apt pupil Suffering of his own making moved him to outbursts of glee In this he was encouraged. By the time he reached manhood he was a. master of atrocity. The homicidal vagaries of a mind disordered arc not to be compared with the infinite variety of Ivans mur- derous achievements. He halted at noth- ing.
 Early in life 1t was his delight to ride forth with pack of half starved hounds and set them upon babes and toddlers playing in the byways. When the dogs had torn them limb from limb he could order his soldiers to toss the heads into the laps of the parents. Next his out bursts of monstrous cruelty would be di- rected against women. One of his proud moments was when he hanged all the women in a village at their cottage doors and then set a guard to see that others in the household passed in and out, day by day, under ahe swinging corpses.
 The fiendish idea of the skeleton at the feast was another thing that appealed to his love of the horrible. Into coun- try town he rode, with his uniformed murderers, under most satisfactory or ders to kill at least one man in each household. This done, with swift-swing- ing blades, the corpses were fastened in chairs at the places at tables occupied by them in life, and at these boards those who had been spared were forced to eat while they gazed upon the dead. On an- other occasion-for Ivan turned to new forms of cruelty each day-he buried score of more of men in trenches up to their necks and then spread feasts upon A nearby table so that all the victims could see while he and others sat down and ate clean the board. This was re- peated. day by day, until starvation had done it's work.
 And while these things were being done Ivan was building the gorgeously fres- coed Cathedral of St. Bastil. The archi- tect was summoned to the palace when the great work was done, and Ivan thanked him-and then he dug out the architects eyes to the end that this mas terpiece might not be duplicated
 Vassily Chibanor, an envoy sent from the Poles to treat for an amnesty was pinned to the bloody stairway. Chibanor grew long-winded and Ivan became lm- patient so with the metal tipped im- perial baton on which the cruel old czar was leaning, Ivan made lunge at the envoy's foot, pinning foot and satin slip ner to the stair. The occurrence is well authenticated in Russian history
 It was at the uppermost landing that Ivan killed his son. He had become by that time a patriarch of 'criminaiity Ouaoks and magicians had helped infiame his disordered mind, and now they told him his son was plotting against him. The old czar met his son on the sixtieth step. and at the very door leading to the sacred vestibule. The stairway was then roofed. it's inner side presenting a series os Biblical scenes and quaintly depicted saints Here Ivan beat in the skull of the heir to the throne with a golden mace AS his lifes blood trickled down the