shocking to philanthropic sentiment.

But it is

of essential importance, in considering whether we should invoke the assistance of a foreign Power for a philanthropic object, that we should know whether its past and present conduct is of a nature to promote or to defeat that object. In the ordinary affairs of life we should scarcely entrust the property of the widow and orphan to any one whose antecedents would not bear the strictest investigation. Now, what are the antecedents of Russia?

manity.

The first point to be investigated before we Russian hucan safely call upon Russia to aid us in a humane undertaking is, whether Russia is herself a humane power. On this point the evidence is overwhelming. The story of the massacre of the Yomud Turkomans, as told by Mr. Schuyler, the historian of the Bulgarian massacres, has horrified all Europe, but as its significance in proof of the inhumanity of the Russian Government has been disputed, we will here briefly repeat it.

General Kaufmann, after the taking of Khiva, ordered the tribe of the Yomuds to pay a contribution within a period of fifteen days. This,

says Mr. Schuyler, was a mere pretext; the

general's object was not

to exterminate the tribe.

to get money, but

By a written order

to General Golovatchef, he directed the Russian forces to march and attack the Turkomans without even waiting for the fifteen days to expire. The order was:

"If your Excellency sees that the Yomuds are not occupying themselves with getting together money, but are assembling for the purpose of opposing our troops, or perhaps even of leaving the country, I order you immediately to move upon the settlements of the Yomuds which are placed along the Hazavat canal and its branches, and to give over the settlements of the Yomuds and their families to complete destruction, and their herds and property to confiscation." (The italics are Mr. Schuyler's.)

In consequence of this order General Golovatchef, as reported by Mr. Schuyler, addressed his officers as follows:

"I have received an order from the Comman

der-in-Chief-I hope you will remember it and give it to your soldiers. This expedition does not spare either sex or age. Kill all of them.' After this the officers delivered this command to their several detachments. The detachment of the Caucasus army had not then arrived, but came that evening. Golovatchef called together the officers of the Caucasus and said: 'I hope you will fulfil all these commands strictly in the Circassian style, without a question. You are not to spare either sex or age. Kill all of them.'"

And this is the way (according to the report of an eye-witness, taken down by Mr. Schuyler "from his own lips ") that the order was carried

out:

"Nearly every one whom we met was killed. The Cossacks seemed to get quite furious, and rushed on them with their sabres, cutting everybody down, whether a small child or an old man. I saw several such cases. I remember one case in particular, which I could not look at for more than a moment, and rode hastily by. A mother,

who had been riding on horseback with three children, was lying dead. The eldest child was dead also. The youngest had a sabre cut through its arm, and while crying was wiping off the blood. The other child, a little older, who was trying to wake up the dead mother, said to me 'Tiura'-stop. The Turkomans were much enraged at these things, and cut one Cossack into pieces before our eyes."

Another independent witness, Captain Burnaby, in his very able and interesting work, 'A Ride to Khiva,' says, referring to General Kaufmann's dealings with the Yomuds, "Men, women, and children at the breast were slain with ruthless barbarity; houses with bedridden inmates were given to the fiery element; women-ay, and prattling babes-were burned alive amidst the flames. Hell was let loose in Turkistan." Mr. Gladstone, in his well-known article in the Contemporary Review on the Russians in Turkistan, endeavours to palliate these atrocities by urging that they constitute an isolated case. "The Russian troops," he says, "were kept under the severest discipline by their commanders,

and their conduct in general was most exemplary." But surely the very fact that the Russian troops only committed cruelties when they were ordered to do so makes the policy which directed such cruelties only the more atrocious. The orders of the Russian commanders were regulated not by humanitarian principles, but by what they supposed to be the interests of Russian policy; the natives were conciliated or butchered as it

was deemed expedient.

Russia in

and that of

The difference between the conduct of the Difference between the organised troops of Russia in Turkistan and that conduct of of the Bashi-bazouks and Circassians in Bulgaria Turkistan is simply that between a deliberate crime com- Turkey in Bulgaria. mitted in cold blood and the ferocious acts of an undisciplined horde of fanatical savages. We will not ask here which is the anti-human species of humanity? We know that the Russians, as a nation, do not yield to any in humane and philanthropic feelings, and such acts as that above recorded were whispered about with horror and reprobation at St. Petersburg long before they became known to the rest of Europe. The question is, not whether the Russians are