Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1890 — THE "SHEARERS.” [ARTICLE]

THE "SHEARERS.”

A Peculiar (Scot WUoh la Exciting Bunia. Novor vh such a place as Russia for eccentric and mysterious creeds. The peasants in the governmental province of Ufim have been disquieted for soin’> months past by the appearanoe of a new religious sect Although no man hayet sera with his own eyes an individual member of this sect, its extraordinary doings have filled many a village with panic. The “Shavers"—or “Shearers,” as they are properly called—carry on their mad work at night and in secret. Thus the inhabitants of a village discover early in the morning that all the r fowls have been plucked of their feath ers, all their sheep closely shorn, an the hones have had their manes ana tails cut off. The hair, wool and feath ers thus gained are made into a sacrificial pile and burned in an open place on the road. In village after village the cry has been raised, “The Shavers have been here!” The advent of the “Shavers” was foretold, they say, by the appearance of a “besom” (a comet) in the heavens. The peasants are persuaded that the “Shavers” are inspired by an evil spirit, and that their ohjeot in making these bur ted sacrifice* is that the ashes blown about by the wind may scatter the seeds Of the plague through the country.