Semi-weekly herald., 1913-10-09


ual murder" His testimony was
supported by Prof. Sikorsky, of st.
Vladimir university at kieff who held
that the nature of Yuschinsky's
wounds gave every indication of ''rit-
ual MURDER" that the boy manifest
ly had been tortured before death,
aud that several persons were prob
ably party to the crime. AS further
emphasizing the attitude of the gov
ernment, the chief of the Odessa
school district, who openly disputed
Prof, Sikorsky's contentious, was dis
missed from his post In the mean
time the case had attracted world
wide attention. Many prominent
men in England including the arch
bishops of Canterbury and York, Lord
Rosebury, Austen Chamberlain, A. J.
Balfour, and scores of university pro-
fessors, scientists, and ministers of
the gospel signed and sent out to
Russia strongly worded protest
against the blood accusation" In
England, France, Austria and Ger
many. full reports of the inquest on
the murdered boy were submitted to
unprejudiced boards of medico- legal
experts who united in declaring that
he was not tortured nor was the blood
removed from the body, as alleged.
The British committee of which DIR.
w. II. Wilcox, chief expert of the
home office, was the leading mem
Der asserted that the evidence show
ed that the boy was killed almost in
simultaneously by two blows on the
head, that the numerous stabbings
were merely incidental to a peculiar
ly fiendish crime, and that there was
no blood draining. At the last inter-
congress of medicine in Lon
don the case was considered by the
sections on forensic medicine and
psychiatry, and the opinion was
expressed that it was
mot a ritual murder, but the act of
some homicidal lunatic, which had
been seized upon by persons animat-
ed by racial antipathy to the Jews
to distort and misrepresent facts for
their own noefarious purposes" Bells
himself was little better than an ord
mary day laborer, man of practi-
cally no education beyond that of his
trade, and there is evidence that he
never had any strong religious con-
victions. Yuehinsky disappeared on
March 25, when he left home pre-
sumably to go to school. After his
body was found, it developed that in
stead of going to school he had Wis
tied boy friend named Eugene Che
beriak, whose parents lived near the
brick yard where the lads frequently
played.
The direct evidence against Bells,
so far as it has been disclosed, is of
rather a flimsy character. First
there was u statement by lamplight-
er named Shakhhowsky, who declared
that Eugene told him few days lat
er that he and Yuchinsky had been
driven from the brick works by a
man with black beard. Shakhow-
sky's wife deposed that an acquaint-
ance, Anna Zakharovaya, told her
that she saw Bells seize Yuschinsky
and drag him toward the brick yard
kiln. Ann Zakharovaya, however,
flatly denies this. VASTLY Cheber-
lax, Eugene's father, stated that a
week before the murder, his son told
him that two Jews wearing unusual
garb, had taken up their residence
with Bells, and that he had seen
them praying. Unfortunately Eu-
gene, who had been sickly, died be-
fore his evidence could be taken by
the examining magistrate or the mys-
terry might have been cleared up.
Cheberiak's home was the notorious
rendezvous of band of thieves, and
it was they whom Krassovsky and
other detectives believed to have been
the real murderers.
Later, Ivan Kosatchenke, a convict
informer who was placed in the
same cell with Bells for two months
declared that Bells arranged with
him TO poison all the witnesses
against him, and promised that if he
did so the Jews would keep him in
comfort for life.
Throughout the various prelimin-
ary processes of the case the defense
has been seriously handicapped by the
manifest prejudices Of the court of
ficials against the prisoner All pos
sible obstacles were thrown in the
way Of defense counsel. His first
attorney, Grigorovitch, was severely
reprimanded and temporarily sus-
pended from the case for having sign
ed petition protesting against the
'blood accusation" His lawyer
Margoulin, was forced out by reas-
son Of palpably false charge made
by Vera Cheberiak, mother of the
moy, Eugene, that he had attempted
to bribe her. Bells was today rep
resented in court by an array OF