TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA.
BRIEF mention has heretofore been made of cruel persecutions and brutal massacres in Turkish Armenia, committed by Turkish troops and other Moslem mobs. Details have been meager because of the close scrutiny of mail matter, and the difficulties in the way of escape from the ill-fated country by those who might be sympathizers. The following press dispatch gives a fuller idea of the terrible condition of affairs than anything that has yet been published in this country:— "ATHENS, December 3.—Twenty refugees have arrived here from Armenia after a journey full of hardships and suffering. They were seen to-day concerning the terrible events of which they had, in a number of cases, been eyewitnesses. This party of Armenians is the first that has escaped from the districts where the massacres occurred, and it is believed that even worse remains to be told, as the horrors described are understood to have lasted for a long time after this party left.923"Most of the persons who told their stories to-day escaped from Moosh, Bitlis, and Sassoun, taking with them what little they could carry, and making their way with the greatest difficulty to the Russo-Turkish frontier, and going to Erivan and Etchmiadzin. Several Armenian women had escaped from the villages with this party, but when near Erzeroum they died from the effects of saber wounds inflicted upon them before their escape. "For about eighteen months, the Armenians say, the province of Sassoun has been surrounded by Turkish troops, and nobody has been allowed to enter or leave it. About four months ago the Turkish authorities learned that the inhabitants of Vartemis, a village outside the frontier of Sassoun, were sending for the necessaries of life to the village of Dalvorig. Such communication between the two villages being prohibited, the Turks massacred nearly all the inhabitants of Vartemis. This was the second massacre to occur. The first took place about a year ago." "One of the refugees, a man named Khadjik, states that his uncle and aunt were both killed. An Armenian priest named Kevont was killed for refusing to celebrate the Turkish rites in his church at Vartemis. The village contained 325 Armenian houses before the Turks attacked it, but when the fugitives left, only twenty-five houses remained standing. Dalvorig, it appears, is the largest village in the province of Sassoun, and its inhabitants, when they learned of the horrors perpetrated by the Turks at Vartemis, attacked the Turks on the frontier. "The Turkish commander eventually sent twelve soldiers into Dalvorig to learn what had occurred. The Armenians, filled with indignation at the atrocities committed by the Turks at Vartemis, attacked this detachment of Turkish soldiers and put them all to death. When the Turkish commander heard of the death of his soldiers, he determined on vengeance in the most bloody manner possible. A strong force of Turkish troops was sent to the village with artillery, and the massacre began. The guns kept up a continuous fire upon Dalvorig until practically not one stone was left standing upon another. "Selo, the Bey of Initzoun, a Kurd, with a detachment of Kurdish cavalry, went with the Turkish soldiers to the village of Semal and forcibly took the Armenian priest from his church, after disgustingly defiling the sacred vessels and the priest's hands. They then bound him on a donkey, which they drove a distance of a few yards. The soldiers then fired at the priest and killed him and the beast he was bound to. From this village Selo forcibly took eight Armenian girls and sent them to his harem at Initzoun. "Further atrocities were committed by the Turks at the village of Keliehuesen. Before dawn this place was surrounded by soldiers, and while the inhabitants were still asleep, it was set on fire. The brutal soldiers entered the residence of a man named Araket, who was asleep with his wife, and tortured them both in a horrible manner with red-hot irons. "At Keliehuesen the soldiers killed the Armenian priest, Margosa, with twenty other inmates of a house. They were burned to death, the soldiers preventing anybody from escaping from the burning dwelling. The chief of the village of Cheneg was captured by the soldiers and bound to his two daughters. All three were then scalded to death with boiling water. "Ibo Bey, the notorious Kurd brigand of the village of Djibran, and a colonel in the regular army, went with a detachment of Turkish troops to the Armenian villages of Bahlou, Hatezgeni, and Komka, and at each place committed every crime there is to commit. After driving out the men, they collected all the female children of Bahlou together, about 200 in all, and killed them with guns and swords. After this massacre the Turkish soldiers regaled themselves with wine and whatever else they could find in the village. "The Kurdish regular troops from Kizan and Bahran entered the Armenian villages of Allanozig and Aghleg, killed the inhabitants, and wrecked their houses. The number of villages devastated in this manner is said to be over thirty. The Armenians fled in every direction, but many of them were captured by the Turkish troops before they could get away, and were taken to prison. "Khadjik, who was the principal spokesman of the Armenian refugees, told the whole story in a most convincing manner. "Dr. G. Thoumain, a well-known Armenian, has just received a letter, written on September 29, from Todorian, a village near Erzeroum. The writer says:— "How can I write such horrors of our life for the days since the 14th. Mounted robbers rode up to this village an hour after sunset and immediately began an indiscriminate attack upon the Armenian inhabitants. Over 200 shots were fired at the house of the Rev. Mr. Zookis, pastor of the Protestant community, who was absent from Erzeroum. Three balls struck the pastor's wife in the face. She subsequently died from the effects of her wounds. "Some poor people from Khnoos, who were living in the basement of the pastor's house, hurried upstairs when the firing was going on, and all of them were wounded. Mr. Richardson, an American missionary, came from Erzeroum to attend the funeral of the pastor's wife. On September 25 a band of robbers committed murder at Andag and carried off cattle. At Dody they broke into houses and plundered them of their contents. "Dr. Thoumain was formerly a professor at the American College at Marsovan, and has himself been the victim of cruel persecution at the hands of the Turks, in 1893, when serious disturbances occurred in various parts of Armenia, and scores of innocent Christians were thrown into prison, and the Christian college burned. On representations made to the Turkish Government by the Department of State of the United States, Dr. Thoumain was pardoned."