The brigand is bent on plunder; he took up the pious task, the brigands' robs his victim or carries him off to the mountains, not from ill will, but simply with the object of extorting a heavy ransom. The Corsican would scorn to work on these lines. He kills his man because he hates him, because he has been injured by him, because he is the enemy of his clan. And then he takes to the macchi and becomes a bandit one, that is, who is under the 'ban' of the law." in יי The younger Bellacoscia, Jaques, it is said, has a spice of the “brigand him too. He has made himself rich at the expense of his neighbors, and is hated as well as feared; but such mercenary crime is extremely rare in Corsica. The mere fact of being an "assassin" is no dishonor at all, and an assassin like Antoine, who has contrived during forty years to kill all his enemies and yet evade the pursuit of justice, is a hero to be respected and admired. Thus when he decided to give himself up, the first thing the gendarmes did was to fall upon his neck and embrace him on both cheeks, in token of amity. His journey to Bastia was a sort of triumphal progress; he was welcomed and congratulated on all sides, and there was but one man in Bastia who did not rush to shake hands with him, and that was the commandant of the fortress. It is this popularity which has enabled him so long to elude all attempts at capture. On four separate occasions have both Jaques and Antoine been condemned to death par contumace. It is true that of late the authorities have tacitly agreed to let them alone. It became somewhat ridiculous to go on condemning to death and imprisonment men who were in such entire enjoyment of both life and liberty. But for many years the gendarmes were constantly on their track, and every sort of device was employed to take them or starve them out. With this idea some thirty of their nearest relations were arrested on the charge of complicity; it was known that they were regularly supplying the Bellacoscias with food. But it was no good; the next-of-kin fared sumptuously every day, and at the end of three months there was nothing for it but to let the thirty out of prison again. On another occasion their flocks were seized, and publicly sold by auction. A few nights later the brothers descended from their rocky home and quietly drove all the animals back again. The imprudent purchasers were not so foolish as to go to the Vale of Pentica in order to reclaim their purchase money. In one sense the bandit governs by terror, because his safety depends upon it. However popular he may be, he takes care to make it known that anything like treachery will be most certainly avenged; and, as no man can guard himself against a bullet, this knowledge makes it very difficult to obtain a conviction, even though the criminal be taken red-handed in the act. During the elections of 1881, there were sixty people assembled in the public place of Palneca. A certain man, on his way to vote, mounted the steps of the mairie. Another man, armed with a gun, stood on some steps just opposite; both, therefore, in full view of the crowd below. The man with the gun took aim and deliberately shot the other through the neck. judge found it impossible to obtain a single deposition. The sixty witnesses had no mind to get into trouble with either the assassin or his family, aud even the wounded man protested when he recovered that he had no idea as to who could have fired the shot." One bullet had been enough for him, and he had no wish to expose himself to a second! The prosecution therefore had to be abandoned. The made a solemn appeal to him: We said President Levis, "the greater know that you were present, and, how- part of his life, and during all those ever painful it may be, it is your years he had only occasion four times bounden duty to tell us what took to pass a sentence of death." place." The young fellow stood silent "And in how many cases was it for a moment; then lifting his head, he deserved ? " demanded Chief Justice said: "Well, if it is my duty, I will do it. But" touching himself significantly on the breast-"I know that I would not give two coppers for my skin!" (Je ne donnerais pas deux sous pour ma peau.) The bandit got off with a few months' imprisonment, and in less than a year the faithful witness was dead. Cadella Baye. "Oh!" returned the president, with a careless laugh, "par vingtaines !" (You might count them by twenties!) To show how strongly the sympathies: of the people are with the assassin, the following case may be cited. A short while ago a murder was committed in the course of a drunken brawl; and it For the same reason that the wit-was rumored that the authorities had nesses will not speak, the juries will got wind of the affair. "Be off! Save not convict. "Nay, even the judges," thyself! The gendarmes are coming!" said M. Cadella Baye significantly, the excited bystanders cried. But the 'fatigue themselves in order to find murderer was too tipsy to realize the out extenuating circumstances." (Se situation and obstinately declined to fatiguent pour trouver des circonstances move; so the company fell upon him exténuantes.) A notorious example of and pushed him out, and as he still this took place only the other day. lingered, they actually beat him with Two families had quarrelled, and a their sticks to make him sheer off beformal defiance had been exchanged. fore the gendarmes could arrive. Prosper Merimée, in his vivid Corsican According to Corsican notions, it novel, "Colomba," calls the vendetta would be a cowardly act to refuse shelthe "duel" of the poor. 'Guard thy-ter, bread, or powder to a bandit. For, self," "I am on guard!" Such are after all, what is the bandit in his the sacramental words exchanged by two enemies before they are at liberty to lie in wait for each other's life. On this occasion one of the adversaries was by no means an expert with his carbine, but from the moment the enmity was declared, he might be seen day after day practising at a mark set up against an oak-tree that stood near the public road. At the end of three weeks, when he had, in his own estimation, acquired sufficient skill in the art of murder, he lay in wait for his enemy, and shot him as he passed beneath the very oak which had done such good service to the assassin during his preliminary course of study. Nothing could have been more coldblooded and deliberate than this act; yet the court chose to consider that the original provocation was a sufficiently extenuating circumstance, and the murderer got off with a penalty of only four or five years. "My father was a judge at Ajaccio," eyes? Simply a man who has been wronged, and who, having failed to obtain justice, has taken the matter into his own hands. With his profound mistrust in the administration of the law, every Corsican feels that one day, sooner or later, he may find himself in the same position. Among the peasant class," I said, that is perhaps intelligible; but how is it that an educated man, holding a high position, like M. Arena, should condescend to receive and dine with an assassin like this Bellacoscia ?" "Ah! There comes in the question of politics, and the spirit of clan' which plays so serious a part in all our public institutions."? These bandits are, in fact, the most; powerful political agents. The elections for the Council General are at: this moment going on, and Arena's: brother is a candidate for the commune of Bocagnano peopled almost entirely: by Bellacoscia's numerous relations. As chief of the clan, he can dispose of nearly every vote in Bocagnano, and the seat is practically his, to give to whom he pleases. On this occasion he has been good enough to nominate Arena's brother, and having seen him safely elected, he naturally comes now to Arena to solicit a free pardon for himself in return. This is by no means a solitary instance of a bandit interfering with the elections. There is a certain ex-mayor at Ajaccio, dismissed for fraudulent transactions, who is nevertheless a power much to be deferred to. He can not only dispose of one hundred votes, but he has also two bandits in his family, a brother-in-law and a son. either for life or property; he had no chance in the battle of life save by allying himself to some powerful family that could make his interests respected. The more numerous the clan, the more its influence would be felt; therefore the Corsican glories in the number of his cousins, as he would in the strength of his right arm. Nor has a century of French rule done much to improve the situation. If justice is no longer sold, it is at least affected in every department by this all-pervading spirit. The mayors, magistrates, assessors - nay, even the native judges themselves -are so imbued with it, that it has engendered in them a sort of "false conscience," and the The Corsican loves not work, neither ordinary rules of right and wrong are is he greedy for gold; but he is ambi- merged in the one paramount duty of tious, an eager politician, keenly desir- upholding the interests of the clan. ous of place and power, of anything, in This was shown during the construcshort, that may set him above his tion of the railway by the curiously fellow-men. The word "politician," | varying valuations of the land through however, must be understood in a local which it was to pass. The clan of sense. The questions that agitate the Casabianca was then in power. The Continent have small concern for him; jury were selected by a Council Genhis politics begin and end with the eral presided over by a Casabianca. triumph or aggrandizement of his clan. The father of this Casabianca was The chief of a clan has no sinecure! their foreman, and they were assisted He is expected on all occasions to exert in their deliberations by a third Casabihimself for the interests of his clients. anca, who had been appointed solicitor If an adherent wishes for a post, it is to the company. Needless to say that the duty of the chief to obtain it for the verdict of such a jury was given him; if he has incurred some fine or in accordance with the "conscience of penalty, the chief must use his influ- the clan," that degenerate conscience ence to get it remitted. His clients in which pronounces everything legitireturn (as to public matters) will obey mate that can tend to the profit of his lead implicitly. He may be a Re- one's friends. Thus a certain piece publican to-day, he may turn Monarch- of land was valued at two thousand ist to-morrow, but it will make no francs; it belonged to an enemy, and difference in their allegiance, nor will the price was reasonable enough; but he lose a single follower thereby; it is the adjoining plot of land belonged to a an understood thing that what he has friend, and though it was all but simdone, he has done for the good of the ilar in quality as in extent the jury clan, and as in former times they would adjudged the proprietress no less than have followed him to the field of battle, thirteen thousand francs ! so they will follow him to the ballotbox to-day. The spirit of clan first took its rise during centuries of abominable misgovernment. Under the infamous rule of the Genoese, justice was not administered, it was sold. For an isolated individual, there was no security The spirit of clanship permeates the Corsican's daily life. In every village there are two clans, the good and the bad, mutually detesting each other, always on the watch to take each other at a disadvantage. The good clan is the one in power, or, in other words, that which is most numerous; but in most cases the numbers are so nearly balanced that three or four deaths on one side, or the return of half-a-dozen absentees on the other, might be sufficient to turn the scale. Then at the next ensuing election the position would be reversed, and the bad clan would become the good. These elections are a constant source of excitement. There are the elections for the Council General (or local Parliament) sitting at Ajaccio, and there is the election for the four deputies representative of Corsica at Paris, and there are also the municipal elections. Moreover, the electoral lists are revised every year in the month of January, and at these times great is the agitation in every village, and endless are the tricks resorted to by the rival candidates for place and power. For instance, the mayor will forget, for two or three years, to register the birth of his enemy's son. Then when that son, arrived at manhood, presents himself to be inscribed on the electoral lists, there will be a dispute as to his age, which, by a little ingenuity, may be prolonged till all chance of exercising his privilege for that year will be over. On the other hand, if the election is a close one, it is easy, by a slight alteration of the register, to antedate the birth of any well-grown youth belonging to the friendly clan, so as to give him the privilege of citizenship before his time. A certain man had got into money difficulties, and applied for help to the Committee for Charitable Assistance at Ajaccio. He produced official papers testifying that he was left with a daughter "newly born." His only daughter happened to be just thirty-five years of age; but then he was a friend of the mayor's! Occasionally these frauds are found out, as in the case of a certain youth who desired altogether to escape the prescribed term of military service, and was promptly furnished with a false certificate to the effect that he was "the eldest son of a widow." The gendarmerie had their suspicions - possibly they may have been put up to it by one of the rival clan. Anyhow, they took occasion to call, and found the " orphan sitting at dinner with his father and mother and a brother several years older than himself. This was unfortunate, of course, but matters are not usually looked into so closely; the Corsican naturally loves intrigue, and has always a fair chance of success. It may be easily imagined what an excitement all this plotting and counterplotting adds to the village life, and what a daily interest it is for the village politicians of either side to meet and discuss their affairs. There is always something new to talk over, some new grievance over which to grumble, or triumph wherein to rejoice; some fresh humiliation to be inflicted on the enemy, Οι some intrigue to be set afoot whereby to gain a vote, or lure over a discontented adherent from the other side. It is a grand thing to be a member of the Council General; an excellent thing for a clan to have a juge de paix among its members. But the post of During a ten days' driving tour we all others to be desired is that of mayor. passed through many Corsican villages, Each mayor is a sort of little king in and often had occasion to notice this his own domain, aud the possession of sort of out-door meetings; the first "the seal" enables him to give an offi- group, perhaps, beneath the spreading cial sanction to all kinds of irregulari- chestnuts at the entering in of the vilties. Thus, if it be inconvenient to a lage street; the second where the road friend to pay his taxes, the mayor will widened in front of the mairie or the provide him with a certificate of indi-church. Lounging on the wall, enjoygence. It would be useless for one of ing the fresh air and sunshine, no the opposite clan to appeal for a similar indulgence. However poor, it would most certainly be decided that he was very well able to " pay up." doubt, but neither asleep nor dozing, like the Neapolitan lazzaroni; making way for the carriage but generally with the air of having been interrupted in some important and interesting conver sation. them set forth clearly why it is that there are so many crimes. The reason is threefold: First, the mal-administration of justice. Second, the spirit of clanship, which it engendered, and which now fosters that injustice in its turn. Third, the laxity in enforcing the licensing laws with regard to the carriage of arms. In many parts of the island every fourth man we saw carried a gun. The pig-driver followed his pigs with a carbine over his shoulder; the peasant, eating his dinner by the roadside, carved his bread and cheese with a knife that was practically a dagger. Our trusty driver, apparently the most peaceable of men, caught sight of a wood-pigeon when we were passing through the forest of Aitone; he turned to snatch up his greatcoat, and pulled from the pocket thereof a pistol ready loaded. Given, an excitable people, a quarrel always ready to break forth, and a weapon always at hand, and the result of the equation may be reckoned upon with tolerable certainty. The men of either party will live in the same village for years, and never speak; nor will they take any notice of each other, save to exchange a mutual scowl as they pass. Sometimes even the hostile factions will not walk on the same side of the street. In Colomba," Prosper Merimée relates how one clan appropriated the north and east sides of the public square, while their opponents never crossed it except by the west and south; and he describes the commotion aroused in every breast when the hero returns after some years absence, and, totally oblivious of the local etiquette, is seen unconsciously walking upon his enemy's side of the way. Heads are thrust out of every window, the gossips run together, "What can this portent mean? Is there to be a shameful reconciliation after all these years? Or rather, oh, glorious thought! is it not a studied insult ? a challenge thrown out the very day, nay, almost the very hour of our chief's return, showing that our ancient wrongs are not forgotten, but that the vendetta is to be pursued as M. Cadella Baye was appointed to keenly as it was in his father's time?" | the chief justiceship in the autumu of Such a trifle as this may lead to a whole 1891. He told us that on the very day series of assassinations. Where the of his first arrival in Corsica he heard a minds of men are kept in a constant noise in the street, and put his head state of irritation, it needs but a spark out of the window. Two men were to kindle the ever-smouldering embers having a violent altercation, and after of hatred into flame. A dog shot in a the mutual abuse had gone on for a vineyard was the cause of an outbreak certain time, one of the two whipped between the rival families of Tafani out his knife and stabbed the other, and Rochini, which caused the death of there, in the public street of Bastia, no less than eleven victims; but behind by daylight, under my very eyes." the petty incident cited, in the act of "And what happened ?" "Oh, nothaccusation, as the "motive” of the ing nobody took any notice; the crime, there was the concentrated es- wound was not fatal, but it might have sence of years of accumulated rage. been." "But how is it these things Bourde says that in some of the villages do not get into the newspapers ?" in Corsica he had seen men who, by" Well," replied a journalist of Ajaccio the incessant persecution of their ene- to whom the question was addressed, mies, were wrought up to such a state" partly from a sort of local patriotism; of excitement that they were positively we do not desire to expose our wounds fearful to look upon. He adds that he to the hostile criticism of strangers. has read several recent works "On the Again, we not unfrequently receive a Criminality of Corsica," but that they letter on these occasions couched somehave all the same fault. They none of what in the following terms: Sir, |