Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1877 — Brigands in Sicily. [ARTICLE]

Brigands in Sicily.

The outrages in Italy still continue, and as yet but little improvement is visible. Peaceable citizens are carried off to the robbers’ caves, kept there for weeks, and only when their friends have paid a heavy ransom for them are they sent back, often in an alarming condition of bodily and and mental health. One of these cases occurred recently. A young man named Tasca, driving in a small carriage on a country road, was met by five brigands and ordered to leave the carriage. They took him prisoner and conveyed him tp a secret cavern where ke remained hidden away three weeks. When at last he was restored to his friends he was in such a condition of mind and body as to be unable to respond to the interrogations of the Magistrate. Another story is related of a shopkeeper in a town of Sicily who, with his son, was opening his store early in the morning. The brigands surrounded him on the pavement ana tried to carry him off, but he, being a very fleshy man, threw himself flat on the ground and thus, thanks to his corpulence, was saved from a very unpleasant experience. Not long since, the English residents in Sicily presented a remonstrance to their Government upon this subject. They said that business of all kinds w&b interrupted, and that their interests were injured, and they asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs to remonstrate with the Italian Government on the existence of brigandage. This petition has excited a feeling of bitterness among the Italians, who say that they are already doing all in their power to subdue the evil, and that it is naturally more inimical to their interests than to those of the English residents on the island. The latest measure adopted was the appointment of a new prefect, buthis arrival was greeted by an extraordinary impertinence Irom Leone, the robber chief, and the most famous of all living brigands. The new prefect found upon his study table the morning after his arrival a card with the “compliments of Leone, Brigand.” ( »

The majority of these brigands are from eighteen to twenty-four years of age, and they frequently end their Jives in prison or by a violent death. M*uy of them, however, learn the bitterness of that way of life and become honest, mep from the revulsion of feeling. ’r r ' ! ?7 r®. The knife is tbs inseparable (pomßMplon of the brigand, and he knows bqtbhow to give and to receive its thrusts with the utmost coolness. When two ot them quarrel the challenge to fight is something like this: “Friend, are you busy?” “No.” “ I would like a word with you; yes, even two.” “Am yon armed?" “Yes.” “ Will you come ?” “ Let us go." And they resort to some uninhabited spot to fight. If one is injured the other immediately becomes his physician and attends to his wound. The Injured brigahd never betrays the name of his enemy, and often in the hospitals of Palermo young men die without a word, the heroes o? their code of honor. When a new man is added to their company, the brigands make trial of bU’ courage to determine whether he \i worthy to be one of them. The Sicilian mafioso wears a jacket and pantaloons of velvet, a cap or hat & little crooked, the hair curled on the temples, aed his language is sharp and concise. He is armed with guns and pistols of the best manufacture, and carries a great quantity of ammunition, as well as an excellent field! glass, with which to examine his eneihies at a distance. But, however daring and well-organized may be the mafia , it could hot flourish as it does without the secret aid of the people who inhabit • the country. These persons, living in houses scattered along the road, conceal the malefactors when there is occasion to do so, and furnisb them with food and clothing. Without courage to be real brigands, they accept the brigands’ money, and are more inimical to the public peace than the outlaws are. Many large proprietors also are iiw timidated into giving aid to the brigands when they demand, it.— Rome Oor. N. Y. Evening Post.