Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/157

 embezzlement, extortion, and the like has taken place, all of which, "if not directly criminal, is at least liable to cause disapproval." He wishes, however, to have an investigation started. It cannot be carried out by the local judges and "staffs," as they are all compromised. Therefore a special commission ought to be sent to the place, but in order to be able to accomplish anything it must be accompanied by an "armed command."

A militia constable at Helsingfors reports as follows:—

On the 5th February at ten id the evening he observed four Red Guardsmen taking a prisoner on to the ice at Hagnäs Square. He went up to them, and asked them where they were taking the prisoner. They answered, "He has been sentenced." The militiaman asked them to show him the document. They declared that they had nothing to show, as the sentence had been passed orally from a passing motor car. The Red Guardsmen were angry, and declared that the whole matter did not concern the constable, that it was an "internal affair of the Red Guard." The constable was, no doubt, of the same opinion, but as a crowd had collected round them, he was obliged to keep to his interference, and demand that the four should take their prisoner to the "staff" in the People's House close by. Two of the four now went away with savage curses, the others obeyed the constable—ascribing it to the crowd—and the prisoner was conducted to the staff.

As more than one thousand murders have been committed, volumes might, of course, be filled with descriptions of the different variations of cruelty and brutality with which they were carried out. Often the murder is caused by an informer. This was the case when the manager of a commercial-school at Helsingfors, Mr. Rosenquist, was arrested because his servant had