Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1890 — BRICANDS AND BEETLES. [ARTICLE]

BRICANDS AND BEETLES.

A True Though Rather Topsy-Turvy Sicilian Romance. Prof. Freeman has lately been assuring English readers in toe Contemporary Review that Sicily i* quiet a safe country to travel in'; and Guy de Maupassant told his compatriots not long ago, in the ‘Novelle Revue, that you were more likely to meet with brigands in Paris or New York than in this beautiful and interesting island. But, happily, quite a short while back, Lombsrdojand his bandlwere still carrying on their exploits, having a special preference for the neighborhood of Trapani, not very far from Palermo. I say happily, because otherwise the most charming of the tragi-comedies of real life could never have happened. A learned German, anxious to possess specimens of a particular sort of coleoptera. known then as the Polyphylla Olivieri, wrote to a Sicilian, friend, Sig. DiStefani, begging him to send him some. Di Stefani, in his torn,-wrote te^auother-entomologist, Sig. Miraglia, asking him to catch some of the creatures for Herr Fratz. But just as he made the request Di Stefani heard that a brother collector, Sig. Lombardo Martorana, of Trapani, had caught fifty of these coleoptera, and Di Stefani proceeded to tell the news to his friend in the following playful note: Mr Dear Joseph: The Polyphylla olivieri having got wind of your murderous intentions went off by another way and took refuge in the Trapani country, where Lombardo has already captured fifty. So far, so good! Now begins the play of cross purposes. Sig. Miraglia threw his Mends letter into the waste-paper basket. His servant, following local custom, flung the contents of that receptacle into the street. The Palermo dustman carted the whole but into the country, where a thrifty contadino, seeing a fair blue sheet with writing on it, and thinking it to nice too leave lying in a field, picked it up and put it in his pocket. Now this poor peasant, just happening to get in trouble with the police, was arreßted searched and the note was found upon him. At the time the authorities had Lombardo on toe brain. For Polyphylla, they read Petronilla—a Christian name. Petronilla Olivieri (poor thing), hearing of your muderous intentions, went “another way" (very naturally), and ‘ ‘took refuge” (but why not in Trapani, of all places?). Foolish woman! Of course. “Lombardo,” who had already made fifty captures, was there to welcome her! Ho, ho! So the contadino, for all he looked so little like ‘‘a gentleman of the road, ” was mixed up in the doings of the brigands! To prison with him—and at once. The case was in due course reported to the newspapers, but no entomologists took heed. Women are not rare in Sicily. Petronilla Olivieri was just a woman, therefore altogether uninteresting tojcollectors. Had (he learned gentlemen but guessed at first that there was a beetle in the case, how different all would have been,! The peasant was re-examined. The magisterial nose smelt • ‘rats” stronger than ever. Witnesses were called. The man case ! looked no better—rather worse! He was placed in solitary confinement. After little some one deciphered |Di Stefani’* signature below the playful note, and he was cal T- - upon to give evidence; but, strange as it may appear, his explanations were considered inadmissible! However in course of time light broke upon the legal mind. Miraglia, the recipient of the letter, was called before the Court. His examination put all things straight; and at last the contadino was released. But he had been three months in prison. —After all. that coleopterais not the true Polyphylla olivieri. A distinguished entomologist, Sig. Ragusa of Palermo, suceeded in proving that it belongs to a distinct species. He promised to introduce me to “Petronilla” (a mummified, *glass-encased 4 ‘Petroeilla”) the heroine of this topsyturvy romance. (She is now called the Polypylla Ragusa, in deference to my acquaintance's discovery,) - I wish much the presentation had been made, for I wanted to take her photograph to send you with her pretty little history—for isn’t it pretty from every point of view, except that of the poor jailbird, the peasant?