CURIOUS INCIDENT

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 68, 21 March 1931, Page 24

CURIOUS INCIDENT

The tiny Republic of San Marino was lately beleaguered by Italian Carabinieri. The cause of the strange state of affairs was a little Milanese girl of ten years and her mother, the Marchcsa Brainbilla, who took asylum in the hilltop republic, where they defied those who sought to put into execution an order issued by an Italian Court of Law. As a result of a conjugal quarrel and separation, the husband of the marchesa sued her and obtained in tho Milan Law Courts an order to take his daughter from her mother and have the total guardianship of tho child. Before tho legal machinery for the execution of this finding could be put into operation mother and child acted on. the original idea of repeating Garibaldi's successful experiment—they sought and found sanctuary in the republic which still preserves its ancient independent rights in tho midst of the Kingdom of Italy. The legal authorities of both kingdom and republic were thrashing out the "international" legal position, but meanwhile San Marino refused to accede to the attempts mado by the foiled husband to enforce tho oxtradition of his wife and child-

SIEGE OF A REPUBLIC

The Italian' Carabinieri did not enter the confines of the republic, but they were picketed at all points of escapo or exit, and the police of San Marino were also unusually vigilant. The Italian forces, however, were carrying out the double role of protection and aggression. With the San Marino police they were guarding against any attempt to kidnap the child, as had been threatened. At the saino time-the Italian police were ready to arrest the inarchesa should she happen to set foot or be allowed beyond the confines of the republic. Pending the exhaustion of all legal appeals, neither of the two Govornments had so far officially intervened and an "international incident" had so far been avoided, but San Marino was in a state of tension. All strangers entering the town— especially if they happened to look like wicked uncles—wero carefully shadowed in case they had como to smuggle out the refugees, and all people on loot and in cars, as soon as they loft tho (.own frontier gates, were confronted by Carabinieri with demands of proor. of identity, while departing strangers accompanied by children were astonished to be asked severely of each of thorn: "Whose is the child?"