Mr. Arnold White has received, and publishes in the Times
of Wednesday, an official explanation of the Kishineff out- rages. It is written in English rather of the Baboo variety, but its gist is plain enough. The Jews, it is stated, have "developed commercial instincts, and the agricultural popu- lation lives with them ill at ease." The peasants in Bessarabia, in spite of official denials, attributed the murder of a Christian boy to Jewish ritualists, and when in Kishineff a Jew was seen to strike a Christian woman the explosion followed. The workmen began breaking windows, Ste., as a protest, and the police, "which in villages always leaves much to be desired," did not interfere soon enough, andnine Jews were killed. The outbreak was momentary, but on the following day the Jews assembled with clubs to punish the workmen, and a Christian was seen to fall, which called forth "popular passion in all its abject force and abomination." Drunken Russians excited by religious hatred are, says the writer, "worse than South Americans lynching negroes." The military pushed the police aside, but did nothing themselves. The Minister of the Interior consequently placed the city under martial law, and sent the Director of Police to inquire, which was unprece- dented. Many hundreds of rioters are in prison, and will be sent to Siberia, and the Minister of the Interior has authorised the Governors "to use firearms against such rioters." That last sentence gives away M. de Plehve's case, for it virtually admits that the Governors had previously been forbidden to use arms.
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