Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1909-02-17
FIRED ON SAvIoRS
DAsTARDLY WORK OF ccNvlcTs
AT REC3lo.
Sailors with Rifles Landed to Pre-
serve Order and Prevent Lootlng
In the Cities Stricken by the
Recent Earthquake.


The following incident was re-
counted In a secret report sent by
Capt. Cagni of the Italian navy. now
in command of the battleship Napoli,
the first war vessel 10 reach Reggio
after the earthquake, to the minister
of marine
As soon as Capt. Cagni reached Reg
gio he landed in a boat accompanied
, by party of officers and men, score
in all, in order to arrange for the or
ganization of relief parties. No sooner
did they set foot on shore, than about
hundred escaped criminals armed
with rifles they had stolen from the
barracks opened fire on the party 4!
! Cagni and his men were unarmed,
so they returned to their boats and
signaled to the battleship to detach at
once 200 sailors armed with rifles and
two quick firing guns. Within ten
minutes the sailors were landed.
Cagni assumed command lined them
on the beach and gave the order to
march.
The convicts opened fire on them
/ from behind the ruined houses. The
sailors fired vclley in the air, and
then, as the convicts continued TO fire,
/ Cagni ordered his men to fire OH the
convicts, which they did. The firing
continued for five minutes, until most
of the convicts We're killed and the
remainder surrendered
Capt Cagni in his report does not
state how many were kAled, but he
says that his first step was to secure
all the escaped convicts he could find,
convey them on board in irons, and
sail to port in Sicily, where he hand
ed them to the police, and he did this
before rendering any help to the. vic
tins, as he considered it of the ut
most importance to free the city from
this bapd of hooters
Many of the earthquake survivors
owe their lives to strange circum.
stances. Some fell, bed and all, from
top stories to cellars and were not
/, hurt. A sacred picture served as a
shield from the crumbling walls to
another which some were shot from
their beds to the street without sus-
tanning any injury.
There are many cases of wives saw
ing their. husbands, which shows that
Italian women under stress of circum-
stances play a better part than the
men. One courageous woman dug
out herself, her husband and five
children.
Another young girl with two small
brothers was taken out after eight
days, living in a corner of cellar
upon which nearly all the rest of the
house had fallen. She dug for three
days with her hands until she had
opened small hole for air and by
reaching out her hand and signaling
she caught the attention of squad
OF soldiers, who rescued the trio
just as the two children were about
to die.
A party of soldiers removed a por-
ton of crumbling wall at Messina,
which blocked a room in which hus-
band and wife were discovered in bed
Their heads appeared first side by side
! on the same pillow. The husband was
dead, while the wife was alive. A sol
der, seeing this, took off his coat and
covered the mans face to hide 1t from
the WIFE
Never mind" she said Il know
he is dead and his arms are around
me-"
When the bodies were removed 1t
was found that the poor man had en-
braced his wife when he died., and
the doctors had to amputate the arms
to detach the dead from the living
body. The wife did not cry