A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8928, 17 December 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY.

HUNDREDS OP PERSONS MURDERED ONE BY ONE ON A LONELY DANUBE ISLAND. Vienna, October 29.—At Gurgevo, on the Danube, an accident has recently led to the discovery of a series of systematic and wholesale murders. The circumstances under which they were perpetrated were as follows :—Numerous peasants and workmen from the interior of Roumania have been in the habit of crossing the Danube at the above-mentioned port for the purpose of seeking labour in Bulgaria. But on their return journey with their savings, fearing indiscreet questions on the part of the Roumanian customs officials, the travellers have for a long time past evaded the latter by landing on a small island in the Danube, whither they were rowed by Turkish or Bulgarian boatmen, mostly during the night. From this island it was possible to reaoh the Roumanian shore in different ways, unnoticed by the authorities. Some time ago a soldier accidentally walking on the banks of the river heard terrible screams issuing apparently from some reeds near that island. After a silence of several hours similar aoreama were again heard by | persona whom the soldier had called to the spot. On the police proceeding thither they found that on both occasions persons crossing the river and landing on the island had been murdered by their boatmen. A comprehensive inquiry was now instituted by the Roumanian Director-General of Customs, M. Polpaoano, the result of which has been to establish with certainty that hundreds of workmen or peasants have been murdered on the island at the moment of landing, and were then robbed of the money and goods they had with them, their corpses being either buried in graves already prepared or thrown among the reeds in the Danube. In all cases the murderers were Turkish or Bulgarian boatmen from Hustchuk, who carried concealed under their olottiea the knives and daggers with which they despatched their victims, one after another, as they set foot, in the dead of night, on the lonely island in the Danube,