THE "BLACK HUNDRED."

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 28, 2 February 1907, Page 14

THE "BLACK HUNDRED."

An interesting description of a meeting of a "Black Hundred" gang is given m a letter from a Russian revolutionary, which has been communicated to a representative of the Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette. Writing from Homel, in the Baltic provinces he B * ys *i~~"£ asfc . night J J' oinod the Uni °n of the Russian People, in order to be able to attend one of the *Black Hundreds meetings at their headquarters at Orloff's Reßtaurant. \t about 5 p.m. I went to the rostaurant, and s&t "I, 4 corner of the big diningroom. There may have been some eight hundred people present, and they were the most disreputable looking lot 1 have ever sot eyes on They looked like a combination of the > ragged lazzaroni of Naples with the drunken beggars of Moscow., Crime and excess we -e written on every face, and in their dress they seemed to be the direct descendants of the sans-culottos of o ho French Revolution. After a sho:t tiny» the air of tho room began to reek with vodk,a fumes and the smoke of b?d tobacco, while the noise they male was almost deafoning. But dui«J»niy they grew quiet for on tho piatforn appeared their loaders. They wo.'o a. great contrast to their audience. The v general appearance showed that they were amply provided with worldly means, and their faces bore' signs of intelligence." Tho writer then gives the names of these leaders, six in number. "Some of the men of tho audience gave reports of their activity in tho 'punishment' o£ Jews, of robberies committed in tho houses of their 'enemies,' and of the murder of students, which fairly brought down the house with applause. In return tho leaders rose and called tho hooligans 'the Tsar's beloved childron.' Six men in Homol will shortly disappear."