BULGARIAN ATROCITIES.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 140, 26 April 1879, Page 3

BULGARIAN ATROCITIES.

[‘Pall Mall Gazette.’] The Blue-book of correspondence upon Turkish affairs which was issued last Saturday contains iresh matter for the consideration of those who regarded the statements attested by the Rhodope Commission as incredible. In a despatch from Sir Henry Layard, under date of the 17th.of last September, extracts are given from a report of Mr Buckle, staff-surgeon of the fleet in the Sea of Marmora, who furnishes a melancholy account of the treatment of the Mussulman population in East Roumelia. “ Every village we passed,'’ says Mr Buckle, “ between Adrianoplo Philippopolis, was more or less <Testrnved, and all the farms had been wrecked,” The Bulgarians are “ insolent in the extreme,” and try te “ spread terror among the Turks to prevent them, returning to their lands.” “ The Turkish ** women are taken for the vilest purposes, and the men made to work for nothing, thrashed or shot, and no appeals are listened to. The atrocities being committod on the unfortunate Mussulmans in this district are worse than those which startled Europe, two years ago.” Then follows a report from ActingConsul Calvert, in which he states that ou paving his first official visit to the Russian Governor he brought under Lapinsky’s notice certain outrages committed upon Mussulmans at Sary Dauishmend. When the Governor returned this visit some days later he said that inquiries made on the spot had established the fact that outrages had been committed. “ I then inquired,” says Mr Calvert, “whether steps had been taken for the arrest of the guilty parties, several of whom had been Identified by the victims. The tenor of his Excellency’s rejoinder could only confirm —if confirmation were necessary —the impression, or rather conviction, which has been forced ou me—namely, that the passive attitude of the Russian authorities towards offences committed by Bulgarians against the Mussulman population is not attributable to negligence or inefficiency, but adopted systematically and of set purpose, in obedience, no doubt, to superior orders. . The Christians take the law into their own hands, and visit the Turkish community at large with present and indiscriminate bloodshed, rapine, and pillage.” and again : f‘ Since the Russian occupation it is hardly too much to say that the Bulgarians in the rural districts outrage at their will Turkish girls and women by the score.” Later on Mr Calvert mentions the fact of the Bulgarians of Kirk-Kilissa having taken to compelling the Mussulmans to carry them about the streets on their hacks,” a practice to which the‘Daily News’ referred the other day (the riders and the ridden being in that case of course transposed) as particularly illustrative of “ Turkish” humor. On the whole, the facts detailed in these reports appear fully to sustain Mr Calvert’s conclusion that the state of things now prevailingin these districts is “ of an incomparably more widespread, harsh, and barbarous type” than thaQ&ioh it has replaced, . the chief distinction betweed the two being that “ where instances of robbery and assassination of individual Christians occurred under Turkish rule whole Mussulman villages are now liable to that treatment.” All this however, is of course only the report of a British consul ; and we know from experience all such officials are treated by a certain party in England whenever they report the wrong kind of atrocity. We shall be quite prepared to hear that Mr Calvert is no more to he trusted when he re l ates facts of this kind than Mr Fawcett or Mr Holmes.