Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 199, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1919 — THREW GIRLS ON SWORDS FROM SPEEDING HORSES. [ARTICLE]

THREW GIRLS ON SWORDS FROM SPEEDING HORSES.

The barbarous sword game, a relic of the middle ages, and still practised iby the cruel Kurds in the Armenian massacres, was one of the striking things seen by Aurora Mardiganian, the young Armenian girl, whose experiences during two years in Turkish harems ate pictured in “Auction of Souls,” to be presented at the Princess theatre tonight. . - Describes Game. Aurora describes the original sword game, which she witnessed, in the following manner: “In a flat place on the plains a little distance from the spot where I was held captive, I saw a band of Tchetchens prepare for one of the frightful pastimes for which, as I afterwards learned, the wild Circassian tribes are famous. They planted their swords, which were the long, slender-ibladed swords that come from Germany to the Kurds and Tchetchens, in a long row in the sand, so that the sharp-pointed blades rose out of the ground as high as would be a very small child. When we saw these preparations all of us knew what was going to hapPe “Already I was trembling with sickness of heart because of the awful night before and the things I had seen that morning when daylight came. The other girls beside me were trembling, too, and felt as if they would rather die than see any more. We begged our Tchetchens to take us away—to take us where we could not look upon those sword blades—but they only laughed at us and told us we must watch and be thankful to them we were under their protection. The Game Starts “When the long row of swords had 'been placed the Tchetchens hurried back to the little band of Armenians. We saw them crowd among the refugees, and then come •way carrying or dragging with them all the young women who were left— maybe fifteen or twenty—4 could not count them. “Each girl was forced to stand

with a dismounted Tchetchen holding her on her foot, half-way between two swords in the long row. The captives cried and begged, but the cruel bandits were heedless of their pleadings. “When the girls had been placed to please them —one between each two sword blades—-the remaining TchetGhens mounted their horses and gathered at the end of the row. At a shouted signal the first one galloped down the line of swords. He seized a girl, lifted her high in the air and flung her down upon a sword point without slackening his horse.”