In the year 1870 brigandage was general throughout Spain, but the heart and centre of it was the province of Andalusia, with branches and ramifications everywhere, spreading dismay and apprehension among all peaceable people. This was in the interregnum that followed the revolution which drove Queen Isabella from the throne. There was safety for no one. Respectable landowners dared not visit nor reside upon their estates for fear of attack, dreading robbery with violence or seizure of their persons, and they constantly received threatening letters demanding the purchase of immunity on the payment of considerable sums. The roads were more than ever insecure, trains and diligences were repeatedly held up, and small parties of travellers or solitary wayfarers were certain to be laid under contribution. It was claimed that the guardias civiles, the fine rural police, were no longer active but were diverted from their legitimate duties by political party leaders in power. So many bitter complaints, so many indignant demands for protection, reached the central government in Madrid, that the authorities resolved to put down brigandage with a strong hand. A new governor of Cordova was appointed, a man of vigour and determination, armed with full powers to purge the province of its desperadoes.
The choice fell upon Don Julian de Zugasti y Saenz, who had been a member of the Cortes and employed as civil administrator, first as governor of Teruel, where he had restored order in a period of grave disorder, and at Burgos, where he had laid bare a formidable conspiracy against the government. When Zugasti undertook the task, it was high time to adopt energetic measures. There was no security for life or property as robberies on a large scale were perpetrated both in town and country. Well-to-do citizens were seized in the public streets and carried off to sequestration; farmers and cultivators were compelled to share their produce, their harvests, and their herds with the brigands who swooped down on them; the police were impotent or too much overawed to interfere in the interest of honest folk. The prevailing anarchy and widespread lawlessness were a disgrace to any country that called itself civilised. Zugasti did a great work in restoring order and giving security to the disturbed districts. The whole story is told at some length in his book on "Bandolerismo,"[24] which deals with brigandage in Spain from its very beginnings, describing the principal feats of the banditti.
At the outset he was faced with a most difficult situation. Crimes in great number had been committed with impunity. Many of their perpetrators were wholly hidden from the authorities, while others were perfectly well known. A crowd of spies were ever on the watch and ready, whether from greed or to curry favour, with abundant information of openings that offered for attempts at crime. On the other hand the guardias civiles were greatly discouraged and far too weak in numbers for the
onerous duties they were expected to perform. Judges were dishonest and had been known to accept bribes, the ordinary police were torpid, nearly useless and generally despised. A complete reform in the administration of justice was a crying need, as the power and authority of the law were completely broken down.
The new governor was helpless and handicapped on every side. His representations to the government for support were but coldly received and he had to rely on such scanty means as he had at hand. He looked carefully into the character of all police employés and dismissed all of doubtful reputation. He established a system of supplying the guardias civiles at all stations with photographs of criminals at large whom they could identify and arrest, and insisted on strictly revising the permits issued to carry arms, allowing none but respectable persons to do so. The prohibition was extended to all kinds of knives, many of them murderous weapons of the well known type. The quarters of all evil doers he heard of were broken up, including the farm which had come to be called Ceuta because it harboured a mob of ex-convicts, escaped prisoners who were eager to resume their depredations by joining themselves to the plans and projects of others.
These active measures were bitterly resented and vigorously resisted by all evil doers, who went so far as to seek the removal of the governor, and it was falsely announced in more than one newspaper that he had sent in his resignation. The disastrous consequence was the immediate revival of brigandage in various forms. Horses and cattle were once more stolen in the open country and a house in the town of Estado was broken into and a large amount in cash and securities with much valuable jewelry was seized. At the same time ten prisoners escaped in a body from the gaol of that city. On the highroad between Posadas and Villaviciosa, seven armed men robbed nineteen travellers, and a party had the audacity to carry off a child of nine and hold him to ransom. The police and well-disposed people were greatly disheartened, the guardias civiles, which had done excellent service in capturing more than a hundred prisoners in a short time, slackened in their endeavours, while the municipal police, which had forty captures to its credit, also held their hand. The whole situation was greatly aggravated and crime gained the ascendancy. But Zugasti rose to the occasion, publicly denied the report of his resignation; the government published a complimentary decree commending his conduct, and his pursuit of wrong doers was continued with renewed energy. Naturally he incurred the bitterest hostility and went constantly in danger of his life. He received anonymous letters containing the most bloodthirsty threats and was warned by his friends that they could not possibly support or protect him. Undeterred he held his way, bravely and wisely organised an association akin to the "Regulators" of the wild days in the Western States of the United States to patrol the country and insure the general safety, and employed a large force of secret police agents to perambulate the country, keeping close watch upon suspicious persons, travelling by all trains, patrolling all roads, visiting taverns in low quarters, entering the prisons in disguise and gaining the confidence of the fellow prisoners. Zugasti himself spent long periods in the various gaols, observing, investigating and interviewing notable offenders.
The thoroughness of his proceedings might be gathered from the choice he made of his agents. One of the most useful was an idiot boy, whose weak-mindedness was relieved by some glimmerings of sense and who passed entirely unsuspected by those upon whom he spied. His foolish talk and silly ways gained him ready admission into cafés and clubs, where he was laughed at and treated as a butt upon whom food, drink and unlimited cigars were generously bestowed. He had the gift of remaining wide awake while seeming to be sound asleep, his ears ever on the stretch to pick up compromising facts which were openly mentioned before him. He had also a prodigious memory and seldom forgot what he heard, storing up everything to be produced later when he attended upon the governor. In this way Zugasti often heard of crimes almost as soon as they were planned, and could hunt up their perpetrators without delay. On one occasion a mysterious crime was unravelled by placing the idiot in the same cell with two of the suspected actors, who entirely believed in the imbecility of their cell companion and unguardedly revealed the true inwardness of the whole affair.
The ladron en grande, the "robber chief" at the head of a numerous band, is still to be met with, although rarely representing the type of the famous José Maria. These leaders rose to the command of their lawless fellows by force of superior will, and they were unhesitatingly obeyed and followed with reckless devotion in the constant commission of crime. One or two noted specimens have survived till to-day and some account of them may be extracted from recent records.
Vizco el Borje was long a terror to the peaceable people in northern Andalusia. He was originally an officer of carabineros, the "custom house" regiment of Spain, but had been, in his own judgment, unjustly dismissed and found himself deprived of the means of subsistence. Falling lower and lower, step by step he became an outcast, an Ishmaelite consumed with an intense hatred of all social arrangements, with his hand against every man. He began business as a smuggler and soon took to worse, following the Spanish proverb:—