WHOLESALE MURDER ON THE DANUBE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1682, 5 January 1888, Page 3

WHOLESALE MURDER ON THE DANUBE.

At Glurgevo, on the Danube, accident has recently led to the discoyery of a series of systematic wholesale murders. Iho circumstances under which they were perpetrated were given by the Vienna correspondent of the Standard as follows Numerous peasants and workmen from the interior of Boumania hare been in the habit of crossing the Danube at the above-mentioned port for the purpose of seeking labour in Bulgaria, but on their return journey with their savings, fearing the indiscreet questions of the Roumanian Customs’ officials, the travellers have long evaded them by landing on a small island in the Danube, whither they were rowed by Turkish or Bulgarian boatmen, mostly during the night, from this island it was possible to reach the Roumanian shore in different ways unnoticed by the authorities. Some time ago a soldier accidentally walking on the banks of the river heard terrible screams issuing apparently from some reeds near that island. After a silence of several hours similar screams wore again heard by persons whom the soldier had called to the spot. On the police proceeding thither, they found that on both occasions persons crossing the river and landing on the island had been murdered by their own boatmen. A comprehensive inquiry was now instituted by the Roumanian Fiscal General, M. Populeano, the result of which haa been to establish with certainty that hundreds of workmen or peasants have been murdered on the island at the moment of landing, and were then robbed of the money and goods they had with them, their corpses being either buried in grave* already prepared for them or thrown among the reeds in the Danube. In all cases the murderers were Turkish or Bulgarian boatmen from Rustchuk, who carried concealed under th eir clothes the knives and daggers with which they despatched their victims, one after th* other, as they set foot in the dead of night in the lonely island on the Danube.