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Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 266, 19 November 1901, Page 2

THE CAPTURED MISSIONARY. The cables still give no report of. the release of Miss Stone, tho missionary captured by Macedonian brigands. 13,y the mail wo learn that a Paris Figaro correspondent claims to have seen Miss Stone, and he reports that she is well treated, but may bo put to death or married to an outlaw if a ransom of £3,500 is not paid. Miss Stone herself, in a letter forwarded by her captors, states the sum demanded as £2,700. The American Board will pay no ransom, lest its missionaries run greater danger in futuro from banditti. Whatever the truth of the Figaro story, Miss Stone is unquestionably in very real peril. The American Government can do nothing except stir the Turkish authorities to action, and for them the robbers care not a button. Indeed, tho Constantinople theory that they have the co-opera-tion of the Bulgaro-Macedonian committee of revolt is not unlikely. In that part of the world brigandago and revolution are often allied. Raids and ransoms played a large part in the Greek rebellion of 1524 and not a small part during and after the recent Greco-Tuvkish war. The political disorders north of Salonica are favorable to lawlessness, and it is not safe to presume upon the humanity of disappointed brigands. It is but six years since a French girl whose ransom was stolon by a scoundrelly go-between was forcibly married by an outlaw. On tho other hand, death has not been inflicted by brigands upon a foreign-captive in any notable instance since an Italian tourist and three Englishmen wore murdered at Pikermi, almost within sight of Athens, in 1870. The gravity of tho situation is heightened by the fact that every resident within ten miles of the robbers’ den is terrorised by them or in sympathy with tuCrj; woffW give warm ing of any attempt to rescue I.MU •-'-JiJc by force. For the moment the power of tho civilised world seems to be cloiic 1 with the prospect of immunity by a handful of desperate and ignorant mountaineers.