Jews Accused of Cannibalism in Astrakhan: Pogromist Agitators Incite Population Telling Them Jews Ki

Jews have been stealing Christian children, dismembering their bodies and boiling their flesh in huge pots, former members of the anti-Semitic terrorist organisation of Czarist days, the Black Hundreds, have been agitating in the City of Astrakhan in that part of Russia which lies near the Caspian Sea and Persia, endeavouring to work up a pogromist feeling against the Jewish population there.

The Soviet authorities have taken prompt steps to suppress the agitation, and it is announced to-day that the guilty persons are under investigation. Former merchants and other antisemitic elements, the announcement says, incited the population for weeks with various invented stories of alleged Jewish atrocities against non-Jewish children. To give semblance to their tales, they quoted an advertisement appearing in the local Communist paper, asking for information about a local deaf and dumb boy and a friend of his who had disappeared, contending that the two boys had been kidnapped and killed by Jews. The two boys wandered for some days in the neighbouring territory, finally returning home, where they were given a sound trashing by their parents. Mean-while, exploiting the disappearance of the two boys, the agitators began holding up in the streets Jewish mothers walking with their children, insisting on examining the children to determine whether they were really Jewish or were kidnapped Christian children.

One Jewish woman, whose child was crying as she led it along, was surrounded by a crowd, which adopted a threatening attitude. A whisper went round that the woman had kidnapped the child, and cries were raised immediately that she should be lynched. The woman was reduced to a state of fear, but she was able to satisfy the crowd that she was the mother of the child, and she was allowed to go.

The local authorities are now rounding up all who took part in the agitation, and they will be handed over for trial. The authorities have ordered the agitators to explain to the public that they are merely counter-revolutionaries seeking to stir up trouble for the Soviets, and making use of the old Czarist methods of inciting nationalities against each other.