If we must believe that the Russian atrocities which figure
in the new Parliamentary paper compiled by the Foreign Office are not made to order, it is a pity Safvet Pasha does not send a scrap of evidence in support of them. The Russian soldiers, and the Cossacks in particular, are said to have murdered and burned and generally committed the grossest outrages on men, women, and children in the Caucasus, Armenia, and Rotunelia. More than a thousand persons were slaughtered after the capture of Ardahan ; and 1,500 families from Soukoum Kale, driven into the woods by the Cossacks, died of starvation. 200 Mahommedans were overtaken in their flight to Varna by Russian cavalry, who murdered the men and violated the women ; and near Rustchuk, Sistova, Tirnova, and Kestan, the Russians have given the Bul- garians the arms of the Mussulmans and incited them to murder, torture, and outrage their foes. Mr. Layard fears that these stories are true, and quotes as one authority the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. He, however, puts no faith in the stories about outrages upon Christians—though, by the way, he bas'been obliged since he wrote his despatch to send the Rapid to Kavarna, midway between Varna and Kustendje, to protect them. For the most part, Safvet Pasha's accusations are made on the testi- mony of anonymous informants, speaking of places which, as the Grand Duke Nicholas points out, are deserted by Turkish authorities. In fact, the only charge—certainly very serious— distinctly made on European authority, is one to the effect that Sir Arnold Kemball, our Commissioner, stated that Turkish women, suspected of giving information, had been stripped naked, flogged, and driven into the Turkish lines. If he saw that, or any other European with him, one outrage has been proved. As to charges emanating only from the Turkish Foreign Office, we are in no hurry to believe them, even if it were not announced that the 'Turkish authorities are forcing tho peasantry near Ears to make depositions about imaginary outrages ; and if one of the most serious charges—that about destroying the crews of three Turkish merchantmen—were not now admitted to be false.
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