Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1891 — THE "SHEARERS.” [ARTICLE]

THE "SHEARERS.”

A Peculiar Sect Which la Bxetttng Russia. Never was such a place as Russia for eccentric and mysterious creeds. The peasants in the governmental province of Uflm have been disquieted for some months past by the appearance of a new religious seat. Although no man has yet seen 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 sight and in secret. Thus the inhabitants of a village discover early in the morning that all their fowls have been plucked of their feathers, all their sheep closely shorn, and the horses have had their manes and tails out off. The hair, wool and feathers 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 tho 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 object in making these bur ied sacrifices is that tho ashes blown about by the wind may scatter the seeds if the plague through the country.