MASSACRES OF ARMENIANS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 25 August 1909, Page 80

MASSACRES OF ARMENIANS.

HUMAN FIENDS.

The world has been already shocked by the accounts of the massacres of Armenians and others in Asia Minor, but nothing quite so horrible has appeared as the stories which have been told by two women, eye-witnesses and participants in the tragedy, to correspondents of th« Bible Lands Mission Aid Society, of which Lord Kinnaird is treasurer.

One of the women from Kozolook, an Armenian village, to the north of Tarsus,' gives the following account of-her terrible experience at the hands of the Turks: — "There were 47 of vs — men,- women, and children who were taken by the mob as if to go to one of their villages ; other groups were driven in other directions. They marched ub for hours on the - mountains, with one pretext or another, till they brought us to a level place not far from the Tarsus road. Here they debated whether they should kill us. For a long time- they threatened, and we besought them with tears and crying to spare us. They* then said they must send to Tarsus Jor instructions; we gave money to one of them who was -bo go *>s messenger ; ■what word foe brought back or whether lie Teturned at all Ido not knw. They at last told us they were going to' kill us. "We were at the edge of a field of wheat; they took us away into some bushes not far from a terebinth tree, for they, said the fire would hurt the wheat. They ordered us to lie down on the grountl 1 in a row, with our heads to the west. We begged them to shoot us through the heart or the head, but they eaid they did not want to waste powder and "ball on swine like us ; they would do the thing more cheaply. There was a great crowd of them. Four or five went at each of us with swords and daggers, hacking our toeads and breasts. I cannot get the shrieks out of my eaTS. I was badly wounded 1 , but not killed. "They bad made a great fire of dry bushes, and now they threw us all, dead and .wounded, into it. - My three - little children had not been killed ; the men took my eldest and my youngest, a mere babe,- and flung them into the flames, where they perished. I had my second child in my arms, and we were thrown, into the fire together. I at once scrambled out, ithouigh badly burned, with the Mttle one. I xan a short distance", and sat dtown, dazed and weeping. A Turk had pity on me, and led me away, and at last sent me here. My husband and 30 other members of our large family were killed!"

The substance of the second •woman's story is this. She and 11 male members of her family, including her husband and two sons, "with several women and children, were taken to a Turkish village ; they had eaten nothing for 36 hours, and no one heeded their earnest requests for a little bread.

"As they eat huddled together in the house to which they had been taken a mam came in armed with gun and dagger. He took the huelbandi back into a corner and made him give up the little money thai was on his person : in like manner he robbed all. Then the man and bis neighfbours took all the men out a few yards from the door and killed them in the presence of the women. "These latter begged the murderers to 6lay them also, and received the reply that they would do better than that — they would give them husbamdte. It is better to say nothing of what happened afterwards. This woman told me to-day that she hears always the cries of one of her sons, whose two .arms were cut off, so that he Wed to death. This son left a widow and seven Orphan children. Friends, I can write no more ; my talks with these lialf-crazed women have made me ill ; I can neither eat nor sleep. And think of it : There are hundreds of Christian women here in this beautiful Cilicia Who can tell similar stories. Will the civilised world do anything after hearing them?"

In relating the eack and burning of Kozolook the writer savis : — ' 'The fate that befell the young girls must be left urotold. A bride of two months besought her young husband to kill her, which he did, and was almost immediately slain by the savages/

MR SHAKES' EXPERIENCE

Fot over thirty years Mr Jamey Shakes has been a resident of Wellington. His shop in Manners street is well known, and his experience will be interesting to many a sufferer from Rheumatism. Gout, Sciatica, Lumbago, Rheumatic fiout. Stone, Gravel, and kindred diseases. He writes :

"During a severe attack of Rheumatic Gout, I tried RHEUMO. All pains left me in twenty minutes after the first dope, and by the following morning all swelling had disappeared. Hearing that a friend of mire was suffering from Rheumatic Gout T went up to his place with a bottle of RHEUMO, and the result was. as in my ca.=e. a, cure. I can honestly recommend RHEUMO to sufferers from Rheumatic G<mt; a» a cure it is a certainty." Perhaps you have found, that other s/3called remedies, liniments, embrocation*, plasters, or pills — could not cure your Rheumatism or Gout. They did not give lelief for Jhey could not touch the real cause of the suffering— excess uric acid in the blood R-fiETJMO is the one medicine tha* alwajs brings relief. All chemists and store* st 2s 6d and 4s 6d.

— There are 39 letters in the Russian alphabet.