The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-12-08
Brigand Stands Off Troops.

- tthtCagO news
That the terror-in inspiring brigand OF
song and story has not been entirely
relegated TO comic opera was recently
proved by news received from southern
Italy by LItalia, ChicagO's Italian
weekly A member of the blunderbuss
brotherhood. who has been raiding the
country, numbering the peasants ana
plundering wholesale. is now holding
out even against the kings troops that
have cOrnered Musolino and his band
on a rocky hill in Reggie Calabria.
The news has caused considerable
stir among the Italians of Chicago, fer
though highway robbers are by no
means rare in Italy, even in these days,
they are generally nalf-hearted vaga-
bonds or escaped criminals who fall
an easy prey to the police. Not since
the days of Gasperone the greatest,
perhaps. and the most picturesque hg-
ure in the history of the Italian bri-
gandage. has such a daring bandit de
fed the gendarmes and terrified the
peasantry as Mus0IinO.
of his being a genuine brigand of the
cid school there is no doubt. With his
band Of desperadoes he has succeeded
in evading for months the vigilance of
the police and has perpetrated the most
atrOcfOus crimes under the very noses
of the "carabinieri" in spite of the
fact that these are a body of troops
well skilled in bTigand warfare and
most of whom have had the benefit Of
years Of army experience. 1t is they
who patrol the highways and who,
armed to the teeth, escort the dill
gences that in many parts of Italy
have not yet been supplanted by rail-
road trains: and though they are a
body of fearless and ell-disciplined
men, who ought to be and are, UP to
every trick of the trade" In Muse
Frr. ,gF them
With his lieutenants. Jati and Di Lo-
renzo. and a handful of followers, he
has bested them in many skirmish.
and escaped from them innumerable
times by astute Tuses and tricks.
But the brigand's life, like that Of
hunted Wild animal, invariably ends
tragically. The hunting down of Muse
limo has developed into veritabie
campaign. Six hundred and fifty
troops surround the rocky hill in Gala
bria, his last refuge, and southern Italy
eagerly awaits his end.
Even now, with death or imprisOn-
ment awaiting him. and the bayOnets
Of his enemies cleaning on all sides of
him, ne laughs and SCOTS at them and
sends insulting messag es TO their
chiefs, for his prosecutors hesitate be-
fore bringing on the last act of the
tragedy. He refuses TO surrender, for
he knows that galleys verse than
utdAAl await HIM. anu Llit SNANANAS are
not overanxious to storm his citadel,
which is peculiarly adapted for de
Tense, and could not be taken without
loss of life entirely out of proportion
TO the Importance CT a brigand s cap
ture. In the Quandary military en-
gineer has suggested that the hill,
which measures about 10000 cubic
meters. be blown up with dynamite,
thing comparatively easy to accom-
plish owing to the large number of
caves at its base.
What the ultimate result of the
troops scheme and plans viii be is not
yet known; but that Musolino has run
his race and can no longer escape
death or capture and that the best ne
can new do is to die game" are TecoS-
nized facts. His picturesque but I'M
envisbie personality viii go down TO
posterity with that of other great Ital-
ian brigands. all of them men pos
sessed of a dash of bravery worthy OF
q better cause, and soon around hts
name viii be gathering the myths and
fables with which the Italian people,
OF whom the lurid glamour Of bandit
life is not lost, always surround the
heroes of their brigandage.