A CRIME OF SUPERSTITION

Evening Star, Issue 14119, 23 July 1909, Page 4

A CRIME OF SUPERSTITION

IWut-er's correspondent in St. Petersburg writes : The Mohileff Circuit Court, sitting at Gorki, has acquitted all the twenty-six peasants of Sysoeco village charged with the murder ol a two-year-old child who had been denounced us " Antichrist." The instigator of the ciiine, a. religious fanatic, and the father of the child were released on the ground that they had acted in an access of mental exaltation. The self-styled "prophet" seems to have hypnotised the degenerate peasants into a state of brutal frenzy. After he had named the Antichrist in their midst, and had ascribed all the woes of Russia, and mote particularly the bad harvests of Sysoevo to his arrival, the peasants marched in procession to the hut of the child's parents. Midnight was the hour chosen for the sacrifice. The peasants carried lighted candles and ikons, and sang prayers. They found the child asleep in its cradle. The " prophet" seized it in his hands, and dashed it to the ground, trampling it to death. Hatchets were fetched, and the body was chopped to pieces. The remains were then wrapped in a cloth, which was tier] to the tail of a white horse and dragged to a, neighboring bog, into which it was thrown. The " prophet" had assured the peasants that the child would immediately rise from the dead, and when the promise was not fulfilled they began to realise the enormity of their crime.