18 AUGUST 1877, Page 3

The stream of reports of Russian atrocities flowing from Con-

stantinople does not gain in precision, and diminishes in volume. There is a limit to all things, even to Pera romances. Still, we cannot acquit the Bulgarians of showing at Eski-Saghra and elsewhere the murderous propensities always displayed by risen slaves. On the other hand, there is a terrible definite- ness about the accounts of the atrocities by the Turks, which do not diminish. The statement signed by Lieutenant-Colonel Brack- enbury, and three other correspondents, of the atrocities committed by the Ottoman regulars on the Russian wounded in the Shipka Pass refutes the favourite plea that only Bashi-Bazouks are to blame. A correspondent of the Times saw with his own eyes at Karatli the mutilated corpses of villagers slain by the Bashi-Bazouks, and visited the village school-house, the ghastly floors, doors, poets, and books of which were stained with gore ; and from one church at Geula-Mahalisse Colonel Lennox and Lieutenant Chermeide, R.E., brought out the bodies of 175 women and children. The Greek Vice-Consul at Varna officially estimates that in the twelve and a half hours' massacre at Kavarna 750 persons were butchered, to say nothing of the women and children carried off. But worse, perhaps, than all former incidents of the war is the fact that the Kurds in the service of Turkey coolly murdered 970 men belong- ing to the garrison of Bayazid who had thrown down their arms. There is talk about punishing some of the ruffians, but what chance of this, when the hanging of one leads to the desertion of a thousand? We think it right to quote these facts, and to add to them the statement of the Time.' Correspondent with the Turkish Army in Asia :—" I must, in the most emphatic manner, deny all reports of Russian atrocities." But those who still talk of both sides behaving alike are evidence-proof.