RUSSIAN ATROCITIES.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 62, 7 December 1878, Page 2

RUSSIAN ATROCITIES.

By far the most stirring event connected with the Eastern question has liecn the work of the Rhodope Commission. That CouiniiiiHtim has finished iis labours mul retained to Constantinople. It Ims visited nn enormous area of Turkish territory. It has lived in the open country, and taken evidence from Iho sufferers of the Russo-liulgar-.atrocities, and never in the history of man has a more fearful record of crime been ostablishi.il. The Russian and the German representatives have declined to sign the ii'poit of this Commission, the Russian because it reflects on what he calls tlir " honour" of lils countrymen, the German out of a desire to echo the feeling at IWlin, which still is to keep on good terms with St. Petersburg. There is a statement, also, that the Austrian Commissioner has not .signed the report. The story in [jondon is that he i- prepared to sign it, hut that he is seriously ill. Abroad it is thought that the conduct of this gentleman arises from the disposition of the three Empires to hang together, and still preserve the shreds of thoTriple Alliance. Be this as it may. the nlisen it' tire Austrian signature is another indicatio i that Austria is never to ne leheil upon in the hour of difficulty. The Italimi Commissioner entered upon bio duty with a strong bias in favour ui Russia, out ne lias ended with favour of ant i-Russian and with a conviction of the Russian responsibility for these atrocities, as strong as the English and the French. The text of the Rhodope report has not yet come to band, but we have some horrible revelations from tho newspaper correspondents in Constantinople. The" Standard" tells us of the cruelties at Hermanli, where 15,000 waggons full of refuges, men, women, and children, were driven into a " cul-de-sac " between two rivers, and Russian artillery played upon them without intermission for twelve hour. 2000 bodies of children, whom tho women had thrown intu these rivers were afterwards recovered, and the commissioners travelled through the valley of blood and slaughter, where there were hundreds of skeletons of men, women, and children. Another ease is given in tho l'all Mall (ia/.ette, where a "Mussulman woman in tin advanced state of pregnancy excited the curiosity and the ridicule of some young Russian officers in one of the Turkish villages. These fellows made bets as to whether the babe would be a girl or a hoy, and the question was settled in a most horrible fashion. The husband of this murdered creature gave evidence before the. Commission. He established bis .statement, and the Commission was so deeply moved by the circumstance that, notwithstanding all the horrors they had heard before, the sitting of the Commission was suspended for the day. Numbers of other such cases reach us day by day ; but I have given you enough to show that the Inly war in which Russia has been engaged has not deserved the sympathy of those who Udieved Turkey was all in the wrong at the outbreak of this campaign, and w ho so thoroughly endeavoured, and succeeded, iii influencing the public opinion of this country.--Loudon correspondent of " S. M. Herald."