TREATMENT OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2339, 1 October 1881, Page 4

TREATMENT OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

A correspondent of tho "Jewish World" gives a heartrending description of the wreck and demolition worked by the riotero in Southern Russia upon the Jewish quarters of the citiee »nd their dwellings. Passing from this portion of his subjeot, he enters into details of the treatment of tho Jews (homaelves, wbioh are of so horribly cruel a nature aa to be almost incredible, but there can bano reason whatever no doubt that thoy are actual occurrences wbioh he describes :

How the poor Jews themselves were treated can be y oonceivod. The fright and terror of women and children, the dread of what would next happen, may be imagined. And the dre»d was not unfounded. Women w*re dragged ont, stripped of their clothing, flogged, and even more brutally ill-treated. One unfortunate woman to whom I spoke—the wife of a Jew named Fikaraki —told a very piteous story. The mob having drunk and spilled the brandy oat of several casks, made of the barrels a huge bonfire. Then, dragging the helpless woman out, they made attempts to throw her into the flames. On this oocaaion, however, the " iapravnijik" (police functionary) did condescend to leave his vodka and expostulate. "It is not necessary," he said, "it is not necessary to go so far." But allow the mob to scandalously ill-use the woman, and to ttrip and flog her in addition, this he did ; this he evidently considered " not " too muoh. I am loth here to narrate many of tho Btories I have heard of the utter indifference of the military during the riots ; but one instanoe I may give, as the woman positively asserted it was true. Her house had been fired, and the mob would not suffer her family to leave the burning tenement. She camo ftcreaming to the commander of a troop of horse who was near. "Help, Horr Oberst, help us!" " What do you want me to do ?" coolly askod the officer, curling his moustache. "Help us!" cried the woman ; " thoy have set fire to my house, and wo shall be burnt to death !" " Well," was the humane reply, " burn ; it doesn't much matter whether you roast now or hereaftor !" It is scarcely possible to credit such stories. But after the assuranoes given me by men like Dr. Zuckermann, Dr. Maudolstamm, and others here, of the brutal manner in which many high officials expressed their satisfuction with the proceedings on the 26" h, all doubt as to the authenticity of the etateineiit ia removed.

From the Predmaistva 1 drove to another district, without the town limits, known as Salomenta. This " Yorstadt" ia notorious in connection with tho recent riots, as the scene of three brutal acts of murder perpetrated by the mob. . . . Here the seoond mob

from the Podol arrived on Sunday evening, maddened with drink and reckless. At once they attacked the "Schouk" bar, demolishing everything. Dragging out a poor Jew named Pessakoff, they limply killed him outright. Tho unfortunate man loaves a wife and seven children, Bushing upstairs, the mob found an old man sick in bed. For some mysterious reason he was not killed then and there, but was so effectually ill-used that be died the following morning. And then was perpetrated the grossest, the most brutal and pitiful aot of the whole tragedy—a crime that ■hows the oharaoter of the drunken " ilujik." On the approach of the mob the wife of the tenant, Mordeohai Wienarski, fled to an attic, having gathered her children and taking them with her. One unfortunate little thing, • child three years old, was forgotten in the terror and excitement of the scone. Coming upstairs the mob found the poor little creature cowering in a corner, trembling with fright. And what did the ringleaders of this mob of inhuman wretches do? Seizing the obild, they swung it by the legs, and deliberately threw it out of the window on to the ground below. It fell dead on the spot. And this occurred in sight of the military. The poor woman recounted to me the piteous story with tears in her eyes. And standing there in the glowing sunlight, with everything quiet and orderly, the laughter and chatter of the soldiers, loitering about and sitting on the window-sills, re-echoed across the street, and made the tale more heartrending. I could scarcely understand that here in open daylight, in view of a barrack full of soldiery and military in the streets, a poor child of three years should have bean so barbarously murdered. It was difficult to realise, too, that the woman addressing me composedly yet tearfully was actually a mother whose offspring had so pitifully suffered.

Ella Wheeler, in poetry, says :—" I often dream of love, holy as the moonlight on a grave." We should like to know if moonlight on a grave in any more holy than moonjighfc on a wood-abed roof.