PITCHED BATTLE AT MOSCOW.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12643, 2 November 1905, Page 2

PITCHED BATTLE AT MOSCOW.

A DAY OF RIOTING AND BLOOD-

SHED

POLICE GIVEN EVTRAORDINARY

POWERS

(Pei- Sonoma at Auckland.) NEW YORK, October 9. A cablegram from- Moscow to the " Sun " says:—This has been a day of rioting and .bloodshed. Shortly after noon- crowds on the Everskov Bouleviarde assumed threatening proportions. The police and .the military, horse and foot, wilth Cossacks, were fully prepared, and a pitched battle took place. The sabres and carbines of the £jroops—•-who fired three volleys .paint blank at the people,- were met by the crowd with stones and revolvers.

It is impossible to estimate the casualties, as, according to custom, immediately aifter the mob was dispersed the streets were cordoned, and the dead and wounded removed into yards, and the gates closed.

It is feared that 30,000 men employed in the great factories may join in a demonsbraition. The populace is exasperated to the 'last degree, less by open street fighlting than by the barbarous action of the police against all persons after the disturbances have been quelled. The Prefect has issued a riroolamation which places the police and troops in absolute possession of more rights than a civilised army would employ* against an aarmy in time of war. By virtue of proclamation, the police may seize any person they please. Any pretext is sufficient for arrest.

After the fighting was over to-day, boys and youths, men and women, were dragged into the^ Prefect's courtyard, the gates of which were then closed. Thereupon (began what is know as "a lesson to the intellectuals." Scores were 'taken to a stable, along the sides of which were drawn up two lines of picked troops, mostly Cossacks'. The victims were made to run the gauntlet. There were fifty men on each side, who brutally struck them with whips and the butib ends of rifles.

The victims were forced to run until they dropped, fainting or dead. They ware then picked up and .removed to the prison infirmary or mortuary. The unfortunate creatures were taken straight from the street to this peculiar Russian form of execution, without possibility of offering defence or hearing an accusation against them.