Poland Under Martial Law.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7807, 27 April 1905, Page 3

Poland Under Martial Law.

An Englishman, resident in Warsaw, writes to Lloyd's under date February 22 :—" Anarchy reigns here. The city is in an uproar. Everybody Is on strike. The prisons are overflowing. Outrages by the military on defenceless citizens are of constant occurrence. Wncn the State mkldle-olass schools reopened yesterday very few scholars put in an appearance. 'Those who came were accompanied by their parents. Outside a baud of female students hooted the police and gave cheers for liberty and free Russia. Cossacks beat the young women with whips. Three of the ringleaders—all girls under 20 years of age— were hustled .away by the police to a temporary building adjoining the police station. Here, 1 am informed by one of the girls in question, the sergeant ordered them to strip. Two (my iniormand herself being one) did so>, and received a terrible thrashing. The Cossacks used a knotted rope and beat their victims all over the body. The third girl, the daughter of a Jewish saddler in Czerniokovska Street, refused and struggled band with a brutal soldier, who endeavoured to tear off her clothing. The girl bit and scratched like a wild animal, and finally succeeded in driving her . thumb into the eye of her torturer. She was immediately thrown to the ground by Cossacks, and while one ruffiiip sat on her body a second deliberately struck a match and set fire to a celluloid comb in the girl's hair. In a moment her head was ablaze. Frightened their act, the soldier allowed the agonised and .wildly screaming woman-, half naked, and a mass of flame, to rush out into the road. Within a few moments she succumbed to her injuries, p A crowd of strikers forced their way into the building, and, although fired on, succeeded in drngrging two of the soldiers into the snowy street. Here I myself actually saw them torn limb from limb by itfle infuriated mob, God save Warsaw ! "-