The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-05-21 00:00:00

THE GREEK MASSACRE.

The additional correspondence just published as to
the Massacres in Greece only brings into still stronger
light the two great facts which have ever been most
plain throughout the whole of this unhappy affair—the
strength of the brigand interest among the Hellenic
I nation, and the weeknees of the Government (remarks
The Tones). When Lord Clarendon in his just in-
dignation at the Massacre, very naturally declared in
his Despatch to Mr. Erskine of April the 2Sth that all
who either gave information to the brigands of the
intended excursion to Marathon or who, after the
capture was effected, encouraged the band to persist in
extravagant and impossible conditions, should be im-
mediately brought to trial, even he was hardly aware
how wide a net he wee spreading, and how many
accomplices in various degrees of criminality he was
including in its merle". It is scarcely possible,
after perusing this correspondence and its en-
closures, to avoid the conclusion that every
one in Greece—certainly every born Greek—re-
gards brigandage and brigands much In the same
light as piracy and pirates were regarded by their fore.
fathers; whose first question to any voyagers by sea or
traveller' by land woe, 'Are you pirates?" without
attaching to that pursuit the slightest notion of die-
honour or disgrace. Modern Greece, just as Ancient
Hells" lives with her arms in her hand, forthe very good
reason that no man knows how soon his neighbour's hand
may be raised against him. As the Government Ic far
off and the brigands are near, they have come to be a
power in the land. They appear in church, sup with
Demarchs, and fraternise and feast with the
soldiers sent to seize them. Under each conditions
it is absurd to suppose that there can be any real
Government, or that there can be any any respect
for life outaiiie the streets of Athens. But where
the first principles of society are thus wanting in a
country, where law lean alien and civilization merely
skin deep, what can we expect to see in Greece but
a land where there is neither agriculture nor trade,
simply because the right of property is insecure and '
life itself uncertain? There are no roads, and conse-
quently zo means to dispose of local produce, and, to I
sum up all in the words of a great moralist, there are
no hearts, no letters, no society, and what is worst of I
all, continual fear, and danger of violent death, and
the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and I
short, This is a lamentable state of things to find in
a country which has been petted and protected by
almost all the great powers of Europe for the last forty
years."

The Eighth Series of Correspondence respecting the
Capture and Murder by Brigands of British and
Italian subjects in Greece was published on Saturday.
It contains a long description by Louis Gleissner, a
German courier who had accompanied Lord and Lady
Muncaster and Mr. Vyner, of the departure from
Athens of the ill•fated party to Marathon, of the steps
he took when he heard of their detention, of a visit
he paid them while in custody of the brigands, and of
tne finding of the bodies of the Count de Boyl and Mr.
Vyner when the news of their murder had reached
Athens. It contains also the following painful letters
written by the captives when their prospects of early
release began to be obscured. It should be added that
Gleissner had proposed to place himself in the hands of
the brigands as a hostage for Mr. Vyner