Chapter Thirty.
Brigandage and its Cause.
Brigandage, as it exists in the southern countries of Europe, is only beginning to receive its full measure of credence. There was always a knowledge, or supposition, that there were robbers in Spain, Italy, and Greece, who went in bands, and now and then attacked travellers, plundering them of their purses, and occasionally committing outrages on their persons. People, however, supposed these cases to be exceptional, and that the stage representations of brigand life to which in Transpontine theatres we are treated, were exaggerations, both, as regards the power and picturesqueness of these banded outlaws. There were banditti, of course, conceded every one; but these were few and far between, confined to the fastnesses of the mountains, or concealed in some pathless forest—only showing themselves by stealth and on rare occasions upon the public highways, or in the inhabited districts of the country.
Unhappily, this view of the case is not the correct one. At present, and for a long time past, the brigands of Italy, so far from skulking in mountain caves or forest lairs, openly disport themselves in the plains, even where thickly peopled; not unfrequently making themselves masters of a village, and retaining possession of it for days at a time. You may wonder at the weakness of the Italian governments, that permit such a state of things to exist. But it does exist, sometimes in spite of the governments, but sometimes also with their secret support and connivance—notably in the territories of Rome and Naples. To explain why they connive at it would be to enter upon a religio-political question which we do not care to discuss—since it might be deemed out of place in the pages of a mere romantic tale.
The motive of these governments for permitting brigandage was similar to that which elsewhere gives “comfort and support” to many an association almost as despicable as brigandage. It is the old story of despotism all over the world, Divide et impera; and prince or priest, if they cannot govern a people otherwise, will even rule them through the scourge of the robber.
Were there two forms of religion in Italy, as in Ireland, there would be no brigands. Then there would be no need of them: since in aspiring to political liberty the two parties would satisfactorily checkmate one another, as they have done and still do in Ireland—each preferring serfdom for itself rather than to share freedom with its hated rival.
Since in Italy there is but one religion, some other means was required to check and counteract the political liberty of the people. Despotism had hit upon the device of brigandage, and this is the explanation of its existence.
The nature of this hideous social sore is but imperfectly understood outside Italy. It might be supposed an irksome state of existence to dwell in a country where robbers can ramble about at will, and do pretty much as they please. And so it would be to any one of sensitive mind or educated intelligence; but where the bandits dwell, there are few of this class, the districts infected with them having been long since surrendered to small tenant-farmers and peasantry. A landed proprietor does not think of residing on his own estate. If he did, he would be in danger every day of his life—not of being assassinated, for that would be a simple act of folly on the part of the brigands—but hurried away from his home to some rendezvous in the mountains, and there held captive till his friends could raise a ransom sufficient to satisfy the cupidity of his captors. This refused—supposing it possible of being obtained—then he would certainly be assassinated—hanged or shot—without further hesitancy or equivocation.
Knowing this, from either his own or his neighbour’s experience, the owner of an Italian estate takes the precaution to reside in the towns, where there is a garrison of regular soldiers, or some other form of protection for his person. And only inside such a town is he safe. A single mile beyond the boundary of their suburbs, sometimes even within them, he runs the risk of getting picked up and carried off, before the very faces of his friends and fellow-citizens. To deny this would be to contradict facts of continual occurrence. Scores of such instances are annually reported, both in the Roman States and in the late Neapolitan territory—now happily included in a safer and better régime, though still suffering from this chronic curse.
But it may be asked of the peasantry themselves—the small farmers, shopkeepers, artificers, labourers, shepherds, and the like—how they live under such an abnormal condition of things?
That is what the world wonders at, more especially the public of England; which is not very intelligent on any foreign matter, and dull at comprehending even that which concerns itself. Have we ever heard of one of our own farmers raising his voice against a war, however cruel or unjust, against the people of another country, provided it increased the price of bacon in his own? And in this we have the explanation why the peasant people of Italy bear up so bravely against brigandage. When a village baker gets a pezzo (in value something more than a dollar) for a loaf of bread weighing less than three pounds, the real price in the nearest town being only threepence; when a labourer gets a similar sum for his brown bannock of like weight; when his wife has another pezzo for washing a brigand’s shirt—the brigandesses being above such work; when the shepherd asks and obtains a triple price for his goat, kid, or sheep; and when every other article of bandit clothing or consumption is paid for at a proportionate famine rate, one need no longer be astonished at the tolerance of the Italian peasantry towards such generous customers.
But how about the insults, the annoyances, the dangers to which they are subject at the hands of these outlaws?
All nonsense. They are not in any danger. They have little to lose, but their lives; and these the brigands do not care to take. It would be to kill the goose, and get no more eggs. In the way of annoyances the English labourer has to submit to quite as many, if not more, in the shape of heavy taxation, or the interference of a prying policeman; and when it comes to the question of insult, supposing it to be offered to a wife or pretty daughter, the Italian peasant is in this respect not much worse off than the tradesman of many an English town annually abandoned to the tender mercies of a maudlin militia.
Brigandage, therefore, in the belief of the Italian peasant, is not, at all times, so very unendurable.
Notwithstanding, there are occasions when it is so, and people suffer from it grievously. Scenes of cruelty are often witnessed—episodes and incidents absolutely agonising. These usually occur in places that have either hitherto escaped the curse of brigandage, or have been for a long time relieved from it; where owners of estates, deeming themselves safe, have ventured to reside on their properties, in hopes of realising an income—more than a moiety of which, under the robber régime, goes into the pockets of their tenantry, the peasant cultivators. And to prevent this residence of the proprietors on their estates is the very thing desired by their proletarian retainers, who benefit by their absence—this begetting another motive, perhaps the strongest of all, for the toleration of the bandits.
When, in districts for a time abandoned by them, the brigands once more make appearance, either on a running raid or for permanent occupation, then scenes are enacted that are truly deplorable. Owners for a time remain, either hating to break up their households, or unable to dispose of the property in hand, such as stock or chattels, without ruinous sacrifice. They live on, trusting to chance, sometimes to favour, and not unfrequently to a periodical bleeding by black mail, that gains them the simple indulgence of non-molestation. It is at best but a precarious position, painful as uncertain.
In just such a dilemma was the father of Luigi Torreani, sindico, or chief magistrate, of the town in which he dwelt, owning considerable property in the district. Up to a late period he had felt secure from the incursions of the bandits. He had even gone so far as to gain ill-will from these outlaws, by the prosecution of two of their number at a time when there was some safety in the just administration of the laws. But times had changed. The Pope, occupied with his heretical enemies outside his sacred dominions, gave little heed to interior disturbances; and as for Cardinal Antonelli, what cared he for complaints of brigand outrages daily poured into his ears? Rather, had he reason for encouraging them—this true descendant of the Caesars and type of the Caesar Borgias.
It was to this peril in which his father was placed that the paragraph in Luigi’s letter referred. Henry Harding, reflecting within his prison cell, had hit upon its correct interpretation.