RUSSIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13834, 22 February 1907, Page 5

RUSSIA.

OUTRAGES AGATNST FORRIONRRS.

AN APPEAL TO THE AMBASSADORS. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. ST. PETERSRURfI, February 21. (Received Feb. 21, at 11.18 p.i'n.) Tub foreign Consuls have, appealed to the Ambasadors regarding the lawlessness and outrages against, foreigners at Odessa. Tho Governor has warned the Union of the Russian People that it will he dissolved if there is a repetition of the outrages.

An incident at Odessa, rolaled by' tho livening Standard's correspondent, may servo, lie remarks, to show in a small way with what audacity and impunity tho ruffianly gangs of the so-called Union of Real Russians, or Union of the Russian People— a. litle more or loss synonymous with lhat of tho Black Hundred—pursue and assault, their victims.

"About nightfall last evening, at the corner of two busy thoroughfares, a drosehky suddenly drew up close to tho pavement, and a few paces from Ihe spot on I lie kerb where I was speaking with a friend. Three young men. all respectably elad—one of them, I observed, wearing u naval cap and some kind of badge in the breast _ lapel of his coat—hastily alighted and seized a youth of about. 18 who was at Ihe moment passing. At. first, it appeared lo be a rough jest. 1 heard tho man in Ihe naval cap say. as he drew a revolver. ' Any assislance or a single, cry and you are a dead man!' and thereupon the youth was swiftly- lifted into ihe drosehky, which, with ils four occupants, was driven off at top speed. The incident had passed in the space of a single minute. A military officer, who had at the. last inslanl. made a vain attempt li> slop the depariing -vehicle, now turned to a policeman standing on point duty some dozen puces away, asking angrily wily he had not interfered, 'ft was none of my business,' curtly replied Ihe policeman. 'Thoy wore wearing the badges'— lhat is. Ihe badges of the Union of Roal Russians. This morning it transpires that the captured youth—a barber's assistant, who had some days previously refused to join tho union,—was driven to a lonely part of jJio outskirts of the city. His pockets w're first rifled of money, watch, chain, etc. He was then stripped naked and mercilessly flogged with rubber rods, and left lying unconscious, tho ruffians carrying away his clothes. Tho victim is now in hospital, covered from head to foot with black and swollen weals and bruises,, his face being scarcely reccgnisablo by his friends."