The Kishineff Atrocities

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 26, 25 June 1903, Page 1

The Kishineff Atrocities

The great Aolcanic outburst of Krakatoa in 1883 set up a gigantic ocean-w,i\e winch swept around the entue eaith In nn analogous wa,\ the atrocities of the Tuikish nregulais (the Bashi^Ba'/ou"ks) m Bulgaria a lew years pre\ lously (m 187(5) aroused a tidal-wave of horror that circled loinul and i mind oui globe In two piovmces alone (those oi Philippopolis and Tuno^a) 58 \illages were .destioyed in a short time and 12,000 per-

-ons — men, women, and c'mldien — were inassacieU with c\ erv accompaniment ol sa\ age feiocity. Mr. Disraeli then 'held the 1 lbbons ' m the British Parliament He was the liunil and champion of the Turkish Government, sneeied with supi i tor creduluv ut the lepoits of outiane and massacn- pooh-poohed them as mere 'cofleehouse babble ' and ciacked odious lokes about Oriental methods of di-sjiau hmg cnininals to the Land 01 the lleieaitei I'>nt the counti\ was in a Mitiums mood It lose up m an incandescent glow of indignation against

the Bulgarian atrocities. Mr. Gladstone made the summer air vibrate with tingling and impassioned speeches ; he pourod letters like torrents of hot-shot into the newspapers ; 'he darkened the sky/ as one of his biographers says, ' with controveisial post-cards '; ho indicted the Ministry for their support of the Turkish Government ; and for four yeais he sustained the antiTurkish campaign with such passionate enthusiasm that in 1880 the Tories were thrown out and the Liberals vveie returned to power with an ovei whelming majority. In the meantime Russia had also been through a paroxysm of holy rage over the Bulgarian atrocities. In 1877 she declared war against the unspeakable Turk, and at its close Bulgaria became an independent State.

Mark Twain's ' Pudd'nhead Wilson ' imented a hundred maxims of wisdom. He did not, however, learn them from practice, but from observation. 'To be good,' said he, ' is noble, but to show otheis how to be good is nobler, and is no trouble ' It is e\en so with Russia. She prodded a lesson of humanity into Turkey with the point of a triangular bayonet , she dro\e ' the Sick Man ' (for the moment) up to high moial altitudes with the gentle suasion of shrapnel shell and hypodermic injections of lead. But like Puidd'uhead Wilson Russia found it nobler to teach humanity to the Tfurks than to practise it hoi self upon the Jews and Catholic Poles that ha\e the diie misfortune to li\e within her borders. Lovers ot popular liberty looked for a new era of tolerance and internal peace when Tsar Nicholas 11. issued his manifesto a few years ago. But the pompous document was speedily followed by the ciushmgof the liberties of Finland under the heels of a ruthless military tyranny. This was succeeded by the heartless expulsion of unoffending Jews from Kieff. And now General Bobrikoff — the military tyrant who dragooned the gallant little Finns — has been appointed to lord it with his legions in Kieff ; a fresh persecution is announced for the half-million of afflicted Jews in the Ukraine ; and fresh massacres of those law-abiding and sorely-tried people have made the name of Kishineff a name of horror like that of Mullaghmast. The reports published in the great London dailies give terrible pictures of the work of the infuriated mobs of anti-Semites As stated in our last issue, the pretext for these atrocities was the familiar old calumny of ritual murder. Plunder and racial hate were the real motives. An unfriendly Russian tribunal showed how groundless the accusation was But anti-Jewish, like anti-Catholic, prejudice does not listen to evidence It has neither a head to think, nor a heart to feel ' When it moves, it is in wrath ; when it pauses, it is amidst rum ' Envenomed and inflammatoiy articles appealed in the anti-Semite paper, the ' Bessai abet/,' of Kishineff The attention of the civil authorities was called to the dangeious character oi those shucking appeals to the vvoist passions oi the Russian mob But no steps were taken to interfere- with their publication In the circumstances, the action of the Kussian authontios was natuially iegarded a.s a condonation of, or emoui agement to, violence against a people who were already placed, m ellect, outside the protection of the law.

About one-third of the KishmefT population of some 14.0 000 souls aie Jews. Organised gangs ot ruffians set upon them, annul with small hatchets, heav y clubs, and ftones IHuing the two days the riots lasted some 2000 shops woie looted, ptoperiy to the "value o! sewial million roubles (of 2s lod each) was wantonl.\ destroyed, looting! was conducted m systematic and wholesale fashion, the Synagogues were defiled, the Sacred Books in them, torn to pieces, whole streets wei c coveted with wreckage and debus women wei c outraged and murdered, children were brained and thrown out of second or third storey windows, GO to 70 Jews were slam outright and the bodies of many of them horribly mutilated, 500 were wounded, and several thousands of the unhappy people were left without food, clothing, or shelter The details resemble, m many lespects, those that marked the li antic Orange saturnalia that turned the astonished eves of the civilised world upon Belfast in 18S(1 The authorities at Kishineff seem to ha\ c behaved with the most ciiniiii.il nc^ligcm c oi paitialit\ ' A lai ge nulitaiv iotce of .ill aims,' s<i,v s the London 'Times,' ' is quaitoiid in the city, vet it was not until the massacie had lasted a whole day that efhaent steps were taken to put a stop to it ' Reuter gives the finish-

ing touch to the sickening picture by reporting that ' even officials in their uniforms ' took part in the massacre. It is said that the Governor and other functionaries have been deprived of office for their remissness. They ought to have been deprived of the free enjoyment of their heads as well. Local non- Jewish correspondents of the ' Nowosti ' rightly lay the blame of all this foul and wanton savagery at the door of the editor of the ' Bessarabetz.' ' Everyone here,' they say, ' is convinced that the outrages are the outcome of the propa/gianda of the editor of the " Bessarabetz," for until these unhappy occurrences the Jews lived in the utmost harmony with the Christian population.' The whole of this shocking story of plunder, outrage, murder, and mutilation gives a fresh point to Napoleon's famous saying : ' Scratch a Russian, and you will find a Tartar.' Russian ' humanity,' at any rate, seems to be reserved for export, and not for home use. And the nations that raved and stormed over the atrocities in Bulgaria and Armenia are as mute as dumb dogs. Which goes to prove that in this world there is one law for the big bully and another for the small.