Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1897-09-22
BRIGANDs IN GREECE.
SOLDIERS WHO COULDN'T WHIP
TURKS BECAME OUTLAWS.

One of the Calamitles Following the Re-
cent Inglorious War-Merchants Held
for Kanson,-The Country Returning to
the Conditions of Thirty Years Ago.
One of the most lamentable conse-
quences of the disastrous appeal to
arms recently made by Greece is the
sudden outcropping of lawlessness and
brigandage in the north, due to the un-
settled conditions there. tits reported
from Athens that several rich mer-
chants from Thessalian towns, who fed
to the mountains to escape the Turks,
are held for ransom by bandits. If they
had stuck to their shops and trusted to
the moderations of the Turks, they
would have been all right, but they
could hardly escape, being era lie,
when the entire province was stam-
peded by panic fright.
The increase of lawlessness is pre-
cisely what might have been predicted
by one knowing the habits of the peo-
pie. Brigandage is in the blood along
the frontier, and it has never been
altogether suppressed. 1t is true that
in Greece, as in Italy, there have been
few recent attacks upon travellers. 1t
was in 1870 that brigands made a dar-
ing raid upon tourists about six miles
from Athens as the crow flies, and
finally murdered an Italian and three
Englishmen because of some difficulty
about the ransom. Nothing Of conse-
auence has been attempted against
travellers since. Tourists usually go
IN parties and armed. They are in
variably accompanied BY horse-boys
and generally by an armed dragoman,
so that o small band OF road agents
might hesitate about attacking them.
A more powerful incentive to letting
travellers alone, however, is the fact
that a raid upon foreigners always
causes sensation and leads to more
strenuous attempts to break up the
business. It is safer in Thessaly, as
in Sicily, to prey upon natives, about
whose misfortunes the outside world
cares little.
The proximity of Thessaly to the
border is one reason why bandits have
continued to thrive there, while in the
Peloponnesus they have ceased opera.
tions entirely. It is so easy to slip
across the frontier and return laden
with booty from town on the other
side, and perhaps prisoner OF two,
that both Turks and Greeks have con-
tinued the practice.
Medieval ways of looking at things
still prevail in Greece. Men often
carry guns when they go abroad, in
the wilder oarts. The courier with
whom I travelled in Greece last Febru-
ary, writes correspondent of the
Philadelphia Press, carried a murder
GUS looking sheath knife. L asked
him why he did not use revolver in-
stead, but he said he was afraid to
handle one, though he had served his
time in the army. Towns are placed
for defense against attack, not for con-
'venience, exactly as they were 1000
years ago. One of the largest villages
in Southern Greece is Dhivri, which
lies away up among the snowy hills, SO
hidden from the main road through
the valley that during the war of lib
Grafton two OF three thousand Greeks
hid there and were never found by the
enemy.
Converts are like forts. I stopped
one night at tie great Convent of the
Megaspelaeon, which is perched 1900
. feet above the valley, built into cave
"a the face of asheer cliff. This strong
point was never captured by the Turks
in 1S24-27. The monks tucked their
long gowns into their boots, and with
consecrated cannon sent Ibrahim
Pasha's troops flying down tile valley.
The Monastery of Meteora, in Thes-
sally, is holding out now in similar
fashion against the Turkish invasion
of 1897, rolling rocks down on them
in the good old-fashioned way. Prior
Kallistratos Papaseorgios of the
Megaseelaeon told me, while he
showed the frmans of many dead
and gone Sultan, that the monks were
really better off under Turkish rule;
but blood is thicker than water.
In the present lawless state of the
occupied province young men in whose
hands guns have been placed are join
ing the bandits in considerable num-
bers. There isn't much else that they
can do. The practice of wagiug war
by 'tirregulars," too, is reacting
against Greece, which permitted it.
These undisciplined bands are made
up of men of reckless character, who
from the very first could not be re-
strained from taking to pillage, with
warfare as a secondary consideration.
Supplied with rifles and plenty of cart
ridges, many of them will not go home
until their ammunition is gone, and
meanwhile things are pretty lively.
The field correspondents of the Eng
lish newspapers were fred upon more
than once during the short campaign
by these gentry.-Philadelphia Press.
Landslide Exposes Coins.
A large find Of old coins, which
have lain hidden underground for over
1850 years-since the time of the