THE BRIGANDS OF SOUTHERN ITALY.

Otago Daily Times, 6 March 1865, Page 6

THE BRIGANDS OF SOUTHERN ITALY.

The correspondent of the Times, writing from Rome on the 17th of December, nays:—" Though the trial of the brigands for the murder of the hTo French gendarmes on the frontier terminated a few days since, still the brutal nature of the facts, the incidents of the trial, and the very remarkable spectacle which the court presented, deserve a more extended notice than that which I have already given. With the whole case you have already been made acquainted. Two Fren<:h gendarmes were murdered almost in cold blood by the brigands who have ho. long with impunity carried on their horrid occupation on the frontier. One was shot as he was trying to conceal himself, and had his brains beaten out afterwards with the butt-end of a musket. The|'other : was! mortally wounded by four ; shots ■as he was escaping. As the French, claim jurisdiction in every case in which their own people are concerned, the cause was brought before the court martial which sits permanently iv Home, and which consisted on the present occasion of the president, a colonel of hussars, of two field officers, one on each side of him, of. two captains,' a-:snbaltern

officer,--and a sergeant—seven in all. The Judge-Advocate sat on the right of the court, and a non-commissioned officer on the left. The prisoners, rwho were not ! bound; were four in number—a Calabreae, and three natives of the locality of Castro, where the crime was committed, two being .brothers, and the third their cousin. The witneese*, who formed quite a crowd, were all bandiis ibemsclve-i, or in some way or., other connected with bandits, and all fenced like Irishmen to screen their countrymen, and throw the entire onus of the crime on the Calabrese. It was scarcely possible refrain from dwelling with interest on the striking spectacle which the court presented on the women dreesed in their picturesque mountain costume, and got up, too, their panetti (head-dresses) felling white as snow over their shoulders, and their blue petticoats, with brightly colored borders, which were mostly new. One was a beautiful girl under 20, said to have been the mistress of Vincenzo, the Calabrese. As to the men, they were dingy enough; no hats gaily decked out with cocW feathers and ribands, and in no respect corresponding to their fair companions. All were Cocciari, as the country people are here called, from the sandals which they wear, funned of a sole with lacings over the foot. Of the prisoners, Vincenzo, the Calabrese, who was 22years of age, bad the appearance of a harmless boy; the cousin was' 24, and the two brothers in their teens. The President, who alone examined the witnesses (the other members of the court very rarely speaking), put all his questions in French, which were translated by, inter-: pretcrs, and the. witnesses were confronted with the prisoners. The proceedings were conducted with great propriety, according to French usages. During the trial, the secretary rend a letter written in French to General Montebello by a brigand chief who signed his name, threatening what he would do if the prisoners were condemned. The witnesses, I have already said, belonged to the same class as the accused. One, a well known brigand, was introduced, as such.by the Procureur-Iraperial, and another, who shifted bis feet continually, as though he were standing on hot plates, hud been the member of a band, the bead of whose chief he bad cut off to secure the reward which had been offered. Most of them fenced with the questions, and all, either from fear or good fellowship, endeavoured, tp ecreen the entire neighbourhood to which they belonged, and throw the onus on the Calabrese, of whose guilt, indeed, there could be no doubt. The trial terminated with the acquittal of two, the condemnation of one to three years' imprisonment with hard labor, and of one, Vincenzo, to be executed. It is unnecessary to say that both have appealed. There is a moral to be extracted from this crime and all its attendant circumstances, which ought to make an impression on the public mind at a crisis when the temporal power of the Pope is in the balance. Within a hour or two's distance of the holy city, where resides the descendant of St. Peter, surrounded by all the prestige of political and religious influence, there are entire populations so degraded that ignorance, superstition, and crime are the marked features. They plunder or shoot a man down and knock his brains out, and mutter their paters or rosary of the Madonna almost in the same breath. Examine the person of any one of those men and you will find a devozione round bis neck ; and no one more reverent than be before the oratory or the image by the road-ride. Some were taken recently in the Southern Province with along prayer to the Madonna in Latin in their pockets, which was to guarantee them from all injury.