Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/573

* BBIGANDAGE. 499 BRIGANDAGE. of powerful robbers, though the country hail been devastated by them during the Ilundred Years' ar and the Civil wars. Still, France may boast of two great names in modern times: Cartouche (lt)0;M721). who terrorized Paris for a long period, and Mandrin (1724-.55), whose sphere of operations lay south of the Loire, and chiefly in Languedoc. The robber barons of Germany are historic. They swarmed in the southwestern part of the country, on the Rhine, and in what is now Bavaria, A'ilrttemberg, and Baden. The great cities of Southern Germany. Nuremberg, and Augsburg especially, suft'ered greatly from their depredations, and carried on feuds with them. Maximilian I. (died 1.519) did much to crush out these predatory knights by putting them under the ban, and proclaiming a general peace for the Empire. They disapj)eared be- fore the power of the consolidated principali- ties after the Thirty Years' War. About the time of the French" Revolution. .Tohann Biick- ler, apprenticed to a hangman, ran away and set up for himself as brigand, in the Rhine Prov- inces. 'Schinderhannes.' as he was generally called, was absolutely fearless, and frequently captured bands of travelers single-handed, though he commanded more than a hundred men. He was executed at Metz, in 1803. Spain has al- ways been a land of outlaws. The system of imposing extravagant imposts on foreign and domestic trade, which has always been followed, made smuggling immensely profitable, and the country was consequently filled with bands of contrabandists, who plundered and murdered when they could not smuggle. From 1808 to 187{), moreover. Spain Avas at various times the scene of guerrilla warfare; the nation against Napoleon, Liberals against Absolutists, and Cris- tinos against Carlists. In such stormy times freebooters naturally throve. The most famous of Spanish outlaws is probably Don Jose JIarfa, best known, no doubt, as the hero of Prosper WerimCe's Carmen. Italy, in modern times, has been the strong- hold of brigandage, because the conditions neces- sar- for the existence of brigandage have pre- vailed there in the most developed form. During four hundred years the country served as a toy for European nations, and was repeatedly, torn up and patched together to suit the designs of European diplomacy. In Southern Italy espe- cially, the people were reduced to misery, de- prived of all semblance of wise and stable gov- ernment, and subjected to foreign masters. Naples was a nourishing country in the Sixteenth Century when Spain took possession of it. Span- ish tyranny and maladministration crippled the country's resources, stifled its political life, and drove its bold and active spirits to the nunmtains. The period of the French Revolution was the golden age of brigandage, when Italy supplied the world with its most daring criminals, and oper- atic composers with picturesque sul)jccts for their librettos. Then rose Fra Diavolo (q.v.), bandit and monk, hanged in ISOO by the French, against whom he maintained the cause of the Bourbons: Peter of Calabria (c.1810), who pro- claimed himself 'Emperor of the mountains, King of the forests. Protector of the highways'; the priest, Cirro Annochiariso. who said to the Father who came to give him absolution before his execution for numerous bloody crimes, "No tomfoolers'. We are both in the business"; Alarco Sciovo ; Crocco ; and many olhers. Tlie I'oiirbon uprising in 1860 filled Southern Italy with armed bands of partisans, who degenerated into banditti, and were stamped out only after hard campaigning. The peninsula of Italy is at ]ircscnt almost cleansed of the jjcst ; but in Sicily it rages as violently as ever. The Sicilian (nitlaws hold the country in subjugati<m. and live in open alliance with the peasantry and the oflicials. In Sicily, too, the evil of secret socie- ties is prominent, the Mafia finding its home there. The Mafia dates back to tiie time of the Norman invaders, wlien the enslaved people were ruled by the foreign barons, who neither granted them justice nor afforded them protection. A state of things which made possible a murderous ujjrising like the Sicilian Vespers (q.v.) brought about the formation of secret societies among the peasants, organized for their mutual pro- tection. Knowing what justice they were likely to obtain in the lord's court, they ]>ledged them- selves never to apj^eal to the authorities, but to leave all causes to be decided by the society. Continued misgovernment confirmed the peasant in his views, and to the present day he regards all authority and the machinery of government with distrust, and looks upon the ifafia as a national institution, and upon the brigands as victims of oppression. The fact that the society has lost its original character, and that the brigands are mere criminals, does not prevent the Sicilian from holding secret obedience to the one, and paying tribute to the other. Other nations have had, and still have, their bandits. The Kabyles of the Atlas Mountains, the Kurds of Armenia, and the Hill-men of Afghanistan and India are subjects of contem- porary interest. Russia, in the Seventeenth Cen- tury, ' brought forth a great brigand — Stenko Razin, a Cossack, who ravaged the valleys of the Don and the Volga and the shores of the Caspian. In 170 he headed an insurrection of the serfs in Southeastern Russia, took the towns of Astra- khan, Saratov, and Samara, and devastated the country around Nizhni-Novgorod and Tambov. He was defeated in 1671, captured, and executed. The type of brigandage combining patriotism with plunder as practiced in the Balkan States received a renuirkable illustration in the la^t part of inOl and the spring of l'.t02. On Sep- tember 3, 1901, as Miss Ellen M. Stone, a mis- sionary at Bansko, in Macedonia, was traveling through the mountains, accom])anied by a native wonum and an escort of seven men. the i>arty was attacked by brigands, and Miss Stone and her companion, Madame Tsilka, were carried ofi', while the others were sent on to Samokov to tell of the capture, and to state that a ransom of .>^1 10,000 was demanded for the release of the women. It so(m became evident that the party «hlcli had cajilured Jliss Stone were no mere brigands, but were acting as the agents of the Maced(uiian Committee, whose object is to free their countn- from the Turkisli rule, and who resorted to this means to secure the funds neces- sary for carrying on their agitation. Efforts to ruii down the brigands proved fruitless, and finally the I'nited States (iovernment was forced to treat with them through its diplomatic repre- sentatives in Turkey. On Febnuiry a ransom of .'?7i.000 was paid, and on Fcl)ruary 23 Miss Stone and her companion were set at liberty near