The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1878-12-25
A COrsfcan Custom.

, The Corsican vendetta is the theme
of an interesting article in the Paris
Temps. There are two sorts OF vendetta
the direct [as the son avenging his
father or the brother his brother or sls-
teri, and the indirect or transversall,
where the feud is kept up by distant rel
atives. So long as there remains one
member of the two contending families
the field is open to reprisal. One writer
estimates that in thirty years 30, 600 men
were sacrificed to this barbarous custom
another places the murders between
1859 and IT'S at 800, 900. A report to
the council-general in 1852 stated that
since 1921 nearly five thousand assassi-
nations had occurred in that island, and
the situation was 80 serious that Prince
Bonaparte was the only person in the
island allowed by law to carry gun.
Toward the end ,of the second empire
the prohibition was removed, and the
vendetta broke out again with renewed
force and barbarity, the murderers being
absolved and even encouraged by public
opinion. If the man who falls leaves
an orphan in the cradle, his wife or sn-
ter will keep for twenty years his blood
stained clothing to nerve the orphans
arm. The most crushing reproach that
can be afforded to Oorsican is to have
failed in his obligation. In the middle
ages any one who backed out was fined,
and if he remained contumacious for a
week, banished. In 1851 the person
guilty of rimbeccdre had his tongue
slit. Sometimes the quarrel extended
to villages. From 1916 to 1848 the Roca-
Seras and Ortolis of the village OF Sar'
sene had their houses loop-holed like
fortresses, and at times their inhabitants
would have to stand siege for months,
when the man who ventured to the win
dow or opened the door was likely to be
potted from the premises opposite.
Not long ago a priest, who never ven.
tured out save with his gun on his
shoulder and accompanied by his armed
sexton, was shot dead at mass by his
enemy, who was hidden in the confess
sional. The eminent Paoli studied during
the last century in a darkened room,
where the window shutters were lined
with cork. He was besieged in q con-
vent in 1756 by his enemies, and would
have been killed had not the mother of
another foe sent her son, Thomas Gan.
noni, to his rescue, sacrificing her hatred
to her patriotism. In 1894, Andrea
Romanetti shot dead during tie carni-
val festivities the son of Mariana Poz-
20 de Borgo. The mother dressed her
GOLF -, ,,oo1a oftiro an5 with q 7oO99e of
friends, hunted the murderer 80 closely
that he offered to surrender if allowed
to confess himself. She took him to the
priest, knelt and prayed with him dur
ing his shrift, then tied him to a tree,
and drew up her platoon, with their
guns aimed at him, end suddenly relent-
ing, unbound and pardoned him. The
action lives in Corsican tradition, less
because OF its generosity than for its
singularity. There are Parolanti, a
sort of peace-making magistrates, whose
province it is to arrange such feuds, and
their decisions once pronounced are
usually obeyed; but meeting for pur-
poses of reconciliation as frequently
widens and intensi6es the quarrel. The
number of men in family gives it an
Importance greater than the amount of
wealth. Recently ayoung man declined
to marry rich girl, preferring to wed a
poorer one who had seventeen muskets
in the family Ut. e., seventeen male
relatives, who would be bound to defend
the new member of the household in an
emergency.