SOLDIER-ESCORTED TRAMS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8247, 21 February 1905, Page 3

SOLDIER-ESCORTED TRAMS.

FIGHTING IN THE STREETS. EXCESSES BY THE MILITARY.' FAMISHING WOMEN. (Per R.M.S. Sonoma, at Auckland.) LONDON, January 31. The correspondent at Warsaw of the "Daily Mail" telegraphs as follows:— The street railway service here has been partly resumed, with soldiers riding before and behind most of the cars. A few cabs are running. Street fighting continues, and the mob is growing in a dangerous fashion. There have been frequent collisions between the people and soldiers. The revolutionists attacked the troops with revolvers and knives. The principal disturbance to- > day occurred in Noviswait Street, the lea.dß.ig business thoroughfare. At eleven o'clock on Sunday night a regiment of infantry marched to this thoroughfare from Smolna Street. Somebody fired on them, whereupon the troops were Ordered to form square and fire from four sides. Any criticism of 'the troops must be qualified by the fact that they are being constantly exposed to snipers and occasionally stabbed- by passers-by. Generally, the troops are well-behaved, but sometiin.es there are excesses by individual soldiers who have become intdkicated. One drunken soldier killed- two children before his comrades were able to disarm him. There have been many sad cases of wholly innocent people being shot accidentally as they turned street corners. There are rumours that hundreds have been killed. in the fighting in the buburban towns, but I have personally investigated every report of the kind, and learned that there has been a comparatively small death-roll. Fighting was renewed this morning, the people firing from the houses on the.trobps. I cannot find a single shop^that is*un-, harmed. All have- been plundered, and . most pf. them burned. A mob of desperate and hungry women tried* to thrust the soldiers' bayonets aside, to get into a bakery. The guard proved good-natured, and avoided hurting the women. lam accustomed to the sight of misery, but the haggard, starving wretchedness of these women will haunt me to my dying day. JThe troops and the people had a pitched battle here before military rule was established. Even now the slightest weakening of the military would result in an immediate recrudescence of violence. The siuation, on the whole, -has not improvfd. The rioters avoid open conflict, hut seize ©very opportunity to wreak sly vengeance on the troops. Many people are afraid to venture into the j streets, but' young women of the lower | and middle classes court danger in the worst disturbances merely for the love j of excitement. ,

claring that the condition of the city requires additional protective measures without differentiating between those who are forced out against their wills and those who are precipitating the/ strike. The men, it is added, must return to work unconditionally. The number of killed and wounded during the night here is estimated at 160. Out of door life in the city is at a complete standstill. All the restaurants, cafes and shops are closed.