THE COSSACKS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7950, 27 January 1906, Page 3

THE COSSACKS.

The Cosacks are now the only Russian troops whose loyalty is beyond question Their blind devotion to fchfl Emperor is the last hope of the bureaucracy, and the cable messages show that these half savage troops are being used freely to repress the revolutionary movement. The Coseaoks at present flooding Moscow and St. Petersburg have been brought direct from the Caucasus, and, according to the correspondents of English newspapers, they can be relied upon to obey any orders implicitly. The special commissioner in .Russia of the Evening Standard and the St. James' Gazette, supplies his journals with a ghastly account of a Gossan raid on a small village near Moscow. "Up and down the street," he wrote, "a muffled man ran from door to door, stamping into each but, inspecting it impatiently, counselling or directing its inhabitants in the briefest of words. "If the students have given you any pictures or papers, burn them quick. And get to bed, but don't undress," he says to each. The moujiks are all but helpless, paralysed by the imminence of the horror that is advancing through the snow-strewn night towards them. One hut stood with its aoor open, the light within leering wantonly across the road, and within a woman sat dazed upon the bench, her head cast back and her mouth open, while the man of the 'house sprawled on the foul floor, and the air of the place was nauseous with the smell of vodka. In another a girl was moaning with her hands to her face; she had been comely, but now' that the Cossacks were due her husband had remedied that. It was an obvious precaution to take, but when it was done be leaned against the wall with his fingers closing bis ears. A shout from somewhere heralded tte doom Of the village, and forthwith there was heard the clash of hool'a through the frozen snow of the streets, the jingle of accoutrements, and some one'laughing in a strange, shrill mirth." The scenes that followed showed that the unhappy peasants had not exaggerated iu anticipation the horrors of a visit from the Cossacks. Jt has been announced that the Russian Government intends to mobilise the entire Cossack forces of the Empire, nearly half a million in all.