A BOLD BRIGAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXII, Issue 15715, 7 September 1911, Page 6

A BOLD BRIGAND.

The Circassian officer and tlio hundred volunteers who have been sent by the Turkish Government into tho fastnesses of Smyrna to kill or capture tho brigand Tchakerdjali may bo very sorry for themselves before their task is completed. This is not tho first expedition that lias been charged with the duty of dragging tho notorious brigand chief from his strongholds in tho mountains which lie behind Smyrna, and probably the Turkish authorities aro by no means hopeful that it will be the last. Tchakerdjali knows the country in which lio operates, and he knows the methods of tho Turkish soldiery. A few years ago lie was being hotly pursued by a large party when lie cleverly turned tho tables on them. Tlio exhausted soldiers woke one night from an incautious sleep to find that the brigand had been tracking them, and had taken them prisoners. Ho had them soundly thrashed bv the members of his band, as punishment for sleeping while on duty, and sent them back unarmed to their headquarters. The brigand chief, of course, commands tlio respect, if not tho sympathy, of tho Levantine peasants among whom lio moves, and ho is quite one of the most picturesque institutions of his romantic country. His assassination of peasants whom lie suspected of informing against him is not an unprecedented'action—lie will have many lives to account for if lie ever is captured—but murder is not an essential feature of bis ordinary operations. Ho lias never failed to tn.ko vengeance upon those who have assisted the efforts of tlio authorities to end his lawless career, but lie and his large band of highwaymen live by blackmail and plunder. It is said that ho never robs the poor, lie pays double prices for all the provisions he buys, and he makes princely gifts to people who are in need of help. Like many others of liis kind lie poses as a public bencfac-

tor, using his power to compel tho responsible authorities to undertake necessary public works in tho districts which lie patronises. Tho public man who neglects one of Tchakerdjali’s polite requests for tho repairing of a bridge, or the private citizen who fails to appreciate the reasonableness of a suggestion that out of his great wealth ho should assist tho good work is likely to bo afforded an opportunity to repent of his folly in the brigand’s stronghold. Tho methods of the Anatolian bandit are singularly like those which wore employed by the notorious Raisuli, who is now the Governor of a province of Morocco. It is imaginable that Tchakerdjali yet may become an equally respectable member of society.