Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1890 — THE RUSSIAN OUTBREAK. [ARTICLE]

THE RUSSIAN OUTBREAK.

Uprising of Pea mn try Due to Unusual Cruelty of Those In Power, A dispatch from Vienna says that the Russian authorities at St. Petersburg and» Odessa are making every effort to suppress the circumstances connected with the outbreak of the peasantry in Southern Russia. The revolt is said to have originated in the stringent enforcement of the conscription, from which the rich landholders find ways to escape, and the cruelties fall upon the peasants. Tho elders of villages, men held in veneration by their neighbors, have been brutally flogged for stqall alleged offenses, and tho knout has been used on the slightest pretense. The outbreak originated near Zmiev, about fifty miles from Kharkov, being prompted by some act of judicial cruelty not fully known, The peasants, having firearms, seized any - weapons at command, drove the magistral tes from the place and began a campaign of murder and arson against the officials and the aristocracy. The first detachment of troops sent against them was defeated and forced to retire, and General Dragomiroff ordered six regiments of infantry and two of cavalry to the, scene. At last acs counts they had not yet encountered the peasants, said to be swollen to vast numbers and very resolute, though badly armed. The Russian government has redoubled the strength of the guardson the Prussian frontiOriih a determined effort to prevent Polish emigrants from leaving the country. The refugees who succeeded in eluding the guards tell stories of cruelty on the part of tho guards difficult to credit, though many of them bear tho marks of the knout and bludgeon, and plainly suffer from the effect of the fatigue and exposure