Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1875 — Grecian Brigandage. [ARTICLE]

Grecian Brigandage.

*- Writing of brigandage in Greece the Cincinnati Gazette says: The main object of brigandage is a financial one. The robbers are in want of money and the best way for them to turn an honest penny is to steal it. When they capture travelers they help themselves to watches, money and jewels and anything else that may be of value. But the end is not yet. They take the captives into the mountains ana hold them for something more, and they are careful to squeeze out as much as possible. It the victim is a wealthy nobleman or some other purse-proud aristocrat they think it will be worth about £IO,OOO to release him, but if he is some ordinary mortal with no influential friends in Athens a hundred or two hundred pounds will be sufficient. The foreign residents and travelers who happen to be in a Greek or Italian city when ransom is demanded for some unhappy wretch are frequently compelled to raise money to meet the demand. There is a great deal of complaint at this and much of it is well founded. “ Why should I,” said a gentleman to me in Naples, “be compelled to pay something every little while to get one of my countrymen out of the hands of the brigands? I wouldn’t venture where the scoundrels could catch me, and I wouldn’t allow any of my friends to do -so if I could prevent it. But along comes some reckless fellow I never saw, goes into danger and is captured. Then lam appealed to on the ground of humanity and all that sort of thing, and asked to help release him. It is his own fault if he is captured. If he had stayed away, as I do, he would have been safe and not compelled to appeal to strangers. If a man meets with an accident l am willing to help him; but I think it hard to be asked to contribute for a man who has deliberately and w’ith his eyes open walked into trouble.”