The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-04
Documentary Evidence Col lected Describes Terrible Armenian Massacres
CRUELTIES REVERT
 TO THE MIDDLE AGES
The BastinadO Used With
 Effect to Extort InfOrma- tion From Miserable In- habitants of Armenia. Soldiers Extremely Harsh

New York. October a-Documentary evidence of atrocities inflicted by the Turks on the Armenians was made public tonight by the committee formed by Charles R. Crane. Cleveland H. Dodge. and others to investigate the facts of the Armenians massacres and to aid sur- ferers.
 The committee states that the evidence was collected from sources that are un- questioned as to the veracity and author fly of the writers. but that for obvious reasons their names cannot be given and in most cases names of towns and cities must be concealed
 Quotations are given in the committees s report from 4 sources, some of which describe in detail instances where Arme- rians have been put to death, women vio- lated and children slaughtered. of rob- oery torture and death by starvation, and of terrible privations endured in long marches to the desert regions to which the Armenians have been exiled-crimes described by the committee as surpass- Ing fin their horror and cruelty anything that history has recorded during the past 1000 years"
 Terrible Treatment
 The idea of direct attack and massa- ere. carried out in former times says one authority, writing under date of August g. has been altered somewhat in that the men and boys have been de- in en route and later on the women and children have been made to follow. For sometime stories have been prevalent from letters arriving from the interior of the killing of males and of great num- bers of bodies along the roadsides and floating in the Eurphrates river: of the delivery to the kurds by the gendarmes accompanying the vonc coilyoys os women and children of all the younger members of the parties of unthinkable outrages committed by gendarmes and kurds. and even the killing of many yic- tins. At first these stories were not given much credence, but as many of the refugees are now arriving in -- no doubt longer remains of the truth of the rnatter."
 Describing under date of June 20 the wholesale deportation of 26000 Armenian inhabitants of Zeitoun to the Konieh re- zion, Aleppo and places in Mesopotamia one writer gives the text of the Turkish government order giving authority for the expusions. It reads:
 The commanders of the army of in- dependent army corps and of divisions may in case of military necessity and in case they suspect espionage or treason take away either singly or in mass the inhabitants of villages or towns and in- stall them in other places"
 Measures Exceedingly Harsh
 The orders of the commanders" says the writer. may have been reasonably humane; but the execution of them has been for the most part unnecessarily harsh, and many instances accompanied by horrible brutality to women and chill dren and to the sick and the aged
 Whole villages were Sdeported at an hours notice with no opportunity to prepare for the journey, not even in some cases. to gather the scattered members of the family so many little chiidrep were left behind.
 'In many cases the men were bound tightly together with ropes and chains. Women with little children in their arms or in the last days of pregnancy were driven along under the whip like ostle.'
 Another authority describes the use of the bastinado in a certain prison where Armenans were held.
 "At the time of tho Romans" he wrote. "40 strokes were administered at the very most; In this place, how ever. 200, 300. 800 and even 800 strokes were administered. A young man was beaten to death within the space of five minutes. Apart from the bastin- adoing. other methods were employed, too. such as putting hot irons on the chest"
 Armenians Tortured
 Another authority deccribes the use of the bastinado and fire torture in the efforts of Turkish authorities to extract information as to arms in the
 tCestinued on Psge EishD