The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-06-06 00:00:00

ITALIAN BRIGANDAGE.

The Italian Correspondent of The TiMeg, writing from
Rome. the 30th ult., thus describes the daring attacks of the
brigands in Italy,—

Rome was yesterday alarmed by the intelligence of
a tragic event. Count Claudio Raina, of Orvieto, a
man about 60 rears of age, brother of the Deputy
Faina, of Perugia, and a near relative of the Senator,
Donzetta Alsto, of Perugia, as he was driving home in
his carriage from the fair of Viterbo, was attacked by
a gang of four ruffians with masks, and carried off to
the neighbouring mountains, where a price of £6,000
was put upon his head. The encounter happened on
the 25th inst. (Whit-Monday) on the old poet

1111

road between Montefiaecine and Orvieto, where
('omit Francesco Cozza, of Orvieto, met with a
similar accident a few months ago. The daughter
of Count Faina, Signora Palace., who happened to
be bore. M Rome, left immediately for Orvieto
probably itli the hope of saving her father by
..complying ditisthe terms ofthe brigands. Bet it was
top late. The unfortunate aobleman was found dead
iaia field of corn, and it is aupposed that his Captors,
closely pursued by the public force, despatched a
victim who was a hindrance to them in their flight.
These are ominous tidings for Orvieto, a town which,
since the opening of the railway line connecting it
with the capital, seemed likely to become the favourite
resort of travellers and the abode hf the families of
many of those officials whom duty detains at Rome
during the worst months of the unhealthy season. In-
°Meats of this description have a startling and, indeed,
a demoralising ilfiret. The only conaulation ls that
they are daily becoming loss neva nt mid improve-
ment is everywhere perceptible.
Three of the six galley slaves who were still at large
in consequence of the outbreak of a whole gang of c.
.from the gaol I,f I.lozenza have been cal itured, and
there is hope that the remaining three will so be in
the hands of the public force, so that the whole dis-
trict of Rosarna and of Calabria will be relieved (nun
the alarm which the prospect of krevival of lnigandage
had spread among the people. The roads may i.e 'aid
to be compar dively safe in the rest f time Italian
mainland. But the same cannot be said of Sicily, and
especially of the provinces of Palermo and Girgenti,
where brigandage is more than ever rampant, especially
since General Medici withdrew from the Prefecture
of Palermo and from the military command of the
island. There the authorities, anxious to relieve the
over.a orked regular force, have hit upon the plan
of setting a Sicilian to catch a Sicilian, and have
organized troops of Militia cavalry, a kind of
native Yeomanry, fitted as it was hoped by a
knowledge of persons sod localities to cope with the
bands of malefactors who seen, to be at the same
time übiquitous and invisible. Between these ill-
fated huntsmen and their game there is ruthless,
interecine war ; squads of devoted Militia are
almost daily dropping before the fire of their
enemies, hid in ambush, by whom the wounded and
slain are afterwards torn to pieces with Red
Indian savagery. The spoils of their victims are often
used by the conquerors for other purposes besides
mere trophies; for as I read, in Fanfulla a horde of
ruffians, disguised as mounted Militia, have lately been
pillaging houses and defenceless wayfarers in the
district of Bag,herim Persons who have occasion to
travel are compelled to hire a whole bodyguard —a
little army, with van and rear guards, as in open war,
and with link men or torch-bearers for the night ; the
caravan proceeding warily at a foot's pace and employ-
ing two or three days to get over a distance of eight or
ten hours' march.

The Correspondent of the Gazetta dltaiia, from whom
I have these parti offars, refers the evil to the manner
in which the population of the country is massed in the
towns. But this is both its cause and its effect. As
you travel through those districts he says you only
meet towns at five or six hours' distance from one
another. You cross a desert country, all hilly and
rugged, savagely picturesque, but without a church
steeple or hovel to serve as a land mark; without a
hedge or fence to give evidence of human habitation.
The land is not uncultivated, but the husbandmen are
nowhere in sight. Nothing is to lie seen but the slopes
of the hills, all green with pasture, with broad patches
of corn fields, and here and there the open mouths of
brimstone quarries, a safe shelter for malefactors, who
are often miners by day and robbers by night. The
demoralization of the people is complete. The
peasantry huddle together with their landlords in
the wretched towns, and if they have occasion to visit
their farms far away from their homes they must com-
pound with the robber, either by paying black
mail or by aiding and abetting him, supply-
ing him with food and shelter, with arms
and ammunition, and, above all things, with use-
ful and timely information. The idea that the
best security lies in bribing the bigger robber for
protection against the minor thief is deeply rooted in
the people's minds; and we hear of one Volvo, a
famous brigand chief, of Monte Maggiore, lately
killed, whose safeguard was held of higher value
than the escort of a whole regiment, and whose
goodwill was therefore solicited and paid for at any
price by the wealthiest proprietors. Even in Sicily,
however, men like Vali,' get killed one by one, and
the public force gradually asserts its ascendency
There was a time, by no means remote, when the
whole mainland of Southern Italy was in as deplor-
able conditii in as the island, and yet a tragedy like
that of ("Suit Faina has beeome an isolated occur-
rence, and the very fact that the wretches who at.
tacked him were unable to reap the benefit of their
crime by enforcing the payment of his ransom
proves that the mountain fastnesses are is, longer
inaccessible to the public force, and that brigandage
has no stronghold where it may set civilization at
defiance. The opening of good mountain roads
throughout the wildest districts of the Apennines
has done wonders towards breaking up the most
formidable robber nests and enabling the public
force to trace the malefactoni to their remotest
biding-places. There is little doubt that the work
would soon be completed, not only in the Neapolitan
and Roman Provinces, but in Sicily itself, if the
financial distress of the country did not interfere with
the progress of those public works which political as
well as economical views recommend as necessary. It
is the finance, the administration, the proceedings in
the Courts of Law, the management of the prisons,
the incentives held out to the bile and thriftless pro-
pensities of the people, the absence of a sound basis of
education— it is, in one word, the Government that
is still at fault in Italy. But, then, the country is as
yet in the first stages of its self-governing experiments.
A great deal of tripping and stumbling and even back-
sliding is mental he, lint that much has been dnne is
a fact which lutist not be denied even in the teeth of
the evidence that much still remains tube done.