The general received these words quietly, but answered with some heat: “The people of this province are bad, all bad, very bad. There is no other way to repress them than as my soldiers are now doing.” “There are many people here,” I added, “many different tribes and races--are none good?” “No! they are all bad! The Georgians are the worst, but they are all against the government, and must be put down.” “By putting down, do you mean arresting them and burning their homes, or are these stories false?” The general showed slight irritation at this, and replied: “There are more than one hundred thousand houses in this province, one hundred and twenty have been ordered burned since I came to Kutais. What are one hundred and twenty out of so many?” Then, flashing his eyes directly upon me, he added, in excellent French: “These people are terrorists, they are socialists, and revolutionists. When I hear that a man is a socialist or revolutionist, I order my soldiers to burn down his house. It is the only way.” “One hundred and twenty houses, general?” I replied. “I have been only a short time in Kutais, but I have seen the ashes of far more than one hundred and twenty houses.” “Oh, yes,” replied the general. “That may be explained: My soldiers are ordered to burn down a certain house, but of course they do not always have time to see that other houses do not catch fire and so burn also.” Later I had opportunity to verify the truth of this explanation. The soldiers would apply the torch to a particular house and if a wind chanced to be blowing up the valley of the Rion the flames would spread from house to house and leap from street to street, and perhaps the whole village would be destroyed. Pursuing the interview further, I told the general of the rumors which I heard on every hand concerning the treatment of the women and the girls by the soldiers. I spoke specially of a rumor concerning five little girls of tender years, the oldest, I believe, thirteen, who had within a few days been sent from Kutais to a hospital in a neighboring city as a result of the outrages perpetrated upon them by the soldiers. He denied any knowledge of this incident, but he admitted that officers have their headquarters in the hotels and were frequently ignorant of the whereabouts of their soldiers, and, of course, not responsible for single acts of violence which might occur from the hands of the soldiers. Any officer, he maintained, would prevent such gross outrages as that of which I had spoken. He added that his soldiers were frequently forced to shoot women, but that was because women were often revolutionists.