TURKISH AFFAIRS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 11049, 29 August 1896, Page 5

TURKISH AFFAIRS.

ARMENIAN RIOTS IN ..CONSTANTIN OPLE. STUBBORN RIGHTING-. MANY PEOPLE KILLED. [Pub Press Association. ( CONSTANTINOPLE, August 27. Armenians provoked serious rioting in the Turkish capital, and many persons were killed. The banks were attacked, and lighting went on all night. Forty rioters held the Ottoman Bank. The rioting began in Galata, the largest suburb of Constantinople, on the north side of the Golden Horn, and failing to reach the palace the Armenians stormed the Ottoman Bank, killing the gendarmes who were guarding it. The object of the riot was not robbeiy, but of a political character. Many people were killed, and numerous shops Were sacked. Bombs were exploded in Galata and the adjoining suburb of Pera. Hundreds of rioters were arrested before order was restored. French sailors are guarding the French Embassy. August 28. The Porte declares that |the Armenian Committee organised on a vast scale, and with wonderful secrecy, a programme of disorder to terrorise the city. The rioters seized the' banks, a monastery and other defendable buildings and after firing revolvers threiy dynamite bombs in the Street. The Ottoman Bank was seized at noon and the guard shot, their heads being thrown into the streets. Four Turkish ladies passing in a carriage were subjected to a dynamite outrage. Hundreds of civilians, and many soldiers, were killed. A large quantity of stores and bombs were discovered in an Armenian church- at Pera and elsewhere. The bank was defended for many hours, and ultimately its assailants were conveyed away on board Vincent yacht, which probably will he expelled from the Bosphorus, The Armenian Patriarch has excommunicated the leader of the trouble. BERLIN, August 28. Private accounts received here state that the Turkish soldiery butchered hundreds of Armenians. s