Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1881 — A Horrible Picture. [ARTICLE]

A Horrible Picture.

The Herald, a newspaper published in Chili, contains the following description of one of the most terrible Boenes witnessed during the war with the Peruvians. The Peruvians fired from the private houses at the Miraftore with the object of 'driving them out. The Chilians apBlied the torch. When the progress of tie flames made it impossible for those within to remain, the Peruvians began their exodus, and in their escape they looked like devils coming out of hell. When they were out they had to meet the enemy’s soldiers,who were watching for them in order to shoot them down. Not a single one escaped. The corpses of tbe Peruvians were laid in

walls of toe to the conflagration in progress* If any of the besieged was happy enough to escape from the place of the straggle he was soon hunted for and killed like a rat, and sometimes several prisoners woe kept alive by the intervention of officers and oommanders,and were put under the charge of a certain number of soldiers, more to be protected than with an object of being escorted. Bat as soon as any Chilian soldiers Were slain or wounded by thoee who continued the straggle, the prisoners were formed in line and shot without mercy by those who were escorting them. At other times before setting Ore to a house, they tried to blow up a part of it with tor-

pedoes in order to reach the immured Peruvians, and to kill every one who oould be found, without list ening to their piteous appeals for mercy. While the commanding officer, Duvu, was exhorting several Peruvians who were sheltered in a building to surrender themselves, he was slightly wounded. It is impoaible, says tne writer, to Sve an idea of the fury with which e Chilians were seized when they saw the way in which the enemy answered their proposition of a surrender in order to save tkelf lives. The building was immediately set on fire, the soldiers carrying everything they oould lay their hands on to assist the

flames. In a short time the building was surrounded, and there was no escape left for those who were inside. The smoke commenced to suflboate the prisoners before the fire had commenced its work. In that tituation the Peruvians tried to find a way to free themselves from such a horrid death, but every window, and every part of the building which oould have afforded any chance of escape was barricaded with the corpses of those who had been butchered. Many of the unfortunate Peruvians became crazy, and many tried to free themselves from such a death by crossing the fire which surrounded the building but in vain. Others jumped from the top of the burning buildings into the street to meet death at the hands of the Chilians, who threw those who were alive into the fire.