ANOTHER GLOOMY REPORT FROM RUSSIA

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3122, 28 June 1917, Page 5

ANOTHER GLOOMY REPORT FROM RUSSIA

DRUNKEN ORGIES BY SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS London, Juno 21!, The "Daily Telegraph's" correspondent at Petrogrnd states that (he formation of tho Coalition Government was preceded by remarkable disorders in tho provinces. Hideous orgies of drunkenness took place at Minsk, whero the entire garrison and many peasants raided the wine cellars of a manor houso and indulged in a carousal. When the cellars wf;ro emptied' a crowd of five thousand hurried to tho neighbouring distilleries, which wore burnt after the people had drunk themselves into a condition of fury or coma. Several cases ended in death. Other distilleries in the neighlxnirhood wore saved by the pouring away of all stock?. Thero were similar excesses in Samara, a town of 150,000 inhabitants. A mob of demoralised soldiers looted the collars. The wine 7norchants forced tho local council of the Workmen and Soldiers' Delegates to destroy the wino stocks / of tho town. At Cn.mora the fire brigade smashed ten thousand bottles of (vine, and dragged twenty butts, each containing 135 gallons of wine, into tho square, whore they destroyed them with hatchets. Tho Council of Workmon and Soldiers' Delegates, in tho early days of tho disorders, distributed a thousand leaflets, , containing moral precepts. Later they were forced to arrest thirty ringleaders — Aus.-N.Z. Cablo Assn.