The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1870-05-21 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

THE GREEK MASSACRE.  The additional correspondence just published as to the Massacres in Greece only brings into still stronger light the two great facts which have ever been most plain throughout the whole of this unhappy affair—the strength of the brigand interest among the Hellenic I nation, and the weeknees of the Government (remarks The Tones). When Lord Clarendon in his just indignation at the Massacre, very naturally declared in his Despatch to Mr. Erskine of April the 2Sth that all who either gave information to the brigands of the intended excursion to Marathon or who, after the capture was effected, encouraged the band to persist in extravagant and impossible conditions, should be immediately brought to trial, even he was hardly aware how wide a net he wee spreading, and how many accomplices in various degrees of criminality he was including in its merle". It is scarcely possible, after perusing this correspondence and its enclosures, to avoid the conclusion that every one in Greece—certainly every born Greek—regards brigandage and brigands much In the same light as piracy and pirates were regarded by their fore. fathers; whose first question to any voyagers by sea or traveller' by land woe, 'Are you pirates?" without attaching to that pursuit the slightest notion of diehonour or disgrace. Modern Greece, just as Ancient Hells" lives with her arms in her hand, forthe very good reason that no man knows how soon his neighbour's hand may be raised against him. As the Government Ic far off and the brigands are near, they have come to be a power in the land. They appear in church, sup with Demarchs, and fraternise and feast with the soldiers sent to seize them. Under each conditions it is absurd to suppose that there can be any real Government, or that there can be any any respect for life outaiiie the streets of Athens. But where the first principles of society are thus wanting in a country, where law lean alien and civilization merely skin deep, what can we expect to see in Greece but a land where there is neither agriculture nor trade, simply because the right of property is insecure and ' life itself uncertain? There are no roads, and consequently zo means to dispose of local produce, and, to I sum up all in the words of a great moralist, there are no hearts, no letters, no society, and what is worst of I all, continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and I short, This is a lamentable state of things to find in a country which has been petted and protected by almost all the great powers of Europe for the last forty years."  The Eighth Series of Correspondence respecting the Capture and Murder by Brigands of British and Italian subjects in Greece was published on Saturday. It contains a long description by Louis Gleissner, a German courier who had accompanied Lord and Lady Muncaster and Mr. Vyner, of the departure from Athens of the ill•fated party to Marathon, of the steps he took when he heard of their detention, of a visit he paid them while in custody of the brigands, and of tne finding of the bodies of the Count de Boyl and Mr. Vyner when the news of their murder had reached Athens. It contains also the following painful letters written by the captives when their prospects of early release began to be obscured. It should be added that Gleissner had proposed to place himself in the hands of the brigands as a hostage for Mr. Vyner