Famine and Crime in Russia.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 6753, 6 February 1892, Page 3

Famine and Crime in Russia.

St. Petersburg, Dec. .18

The present year will long be engraven on the memory of the inhabitants of Russia, not only on account of the famine but also on account of the many horrible crimes that are being committed in all parts of the empire by the famished and poverty-stricken peasantry. Only last week information reached us from the Siberian westernfrontior.that a young peasant, not yet of age, h i mu: d -red five men in their sleep for the prlt»y sum of four roubles (8s). A still more horrible crime haejust been committed near Mjcchoff, in Russian Poland, by three peasants who lately enticed a shoemaker named Levanoffsky into a forest and there murdered him, believing that he carried a large sum of money about his person. The murderers, in order to escape detection, then cut the body to pieces and endeavoured to burn the remains in a large fire. These attempts to bide their crime, only led to its more speedy discovery ; for a hungry workman, whilst walking through the forest, found one of the pieces of half roasted flesh and brought it homo to bis fellow workmen, who devoured it with great relish, believing that it waa game or horse flesh. The workman who had brought this strange meal to his friends, being accused of having stolen it, immediately offered to show them where he had found the meat. Ar rived at the spot, the workmen then dis covered, to their horror, that they had been dining off the roasted and mutilated body of the unfortunate shoemaker Levanoffukv.