TERROR OF CALABRIA.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 274, 28 November 1901, Page 1

TERROR OF CALABRIA.

MURDERED 25 PERSONS. Rome, October 19.

The notorious brigand Mussolino has been captured after a fierce resistance at Urbino. He had long terrorised Calabria, and is credited with having committed twenty-five murders. Owing to the sympathy shown him by the peasantry ho had always escaped capture, despite the immense reward the Government offered for his arrest.

His career as an outlaw began two years ago, when he was liberated from what he considered an unjust imprisonment. He vowed to kill the fifteen witnesses who were responsible for his conviction, and ho is said to have actually despatched twelve. Giuseppe Mussolino bids fair to occupy in Italian song and story a place somewhat analogous to that held in English literature by Robin Hood. That he is a popular hero with the peasantry of Calabria is beyond question. It is, thanks to their sympathy and active assistance, that he owes most of marvellous escapes from tbe police and gendarmes hunting him with which he is credited.

He is not a brigand in the ordinary sense of tho word. No peaceful traveller has ever had a hair of his head harmed or a paper lira taken from his pockets by Mussolino.

His quarrel was with the authorities. Even the police and gendarmes, who would have no scruple in putting a bullet through his head, were, as individuals, held blameless by this “ grand captain.” When on one occasion he shot a police captain, he lamented tho necessity, according to popular legend, but regretted that his victim had not chosen some other avocation by which to earn his bread. Even if Mussolino was, as he claims, unjustly imprisoned for attempted murder he was no saint. At fifteen years of age he was under police surveillance ; in 1894, when seventeen, he received a first sentence, and three years later a second, for house-breaking. He was tried for attempted murder in IS9B, found guilty’, and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. He managed to escape, and ever since has been a thorn in the side of the Italian police. Whole regiments have been mobilised at times in attempts to capture him, and for a year a force of five hundred men, polico and carbineers, was praotically occupied entirely in the hunt,

It is a peculiar coincidence that when any important political conference has to take placo in Melbourne the date almost invariably is arranged about Cup time. The conference of Inter-State Premiers, for example. Doubtless it is only a coincidence. but it does seem strange that all man-of-war on the Australian station should also find it necessary, for weighty reasons, to rendexous in Hobson’s Bay early in November every year.—Sydney Newsletter. The lack of grass in New Zealand caused one small sheep farmer to feed his lambs on oatmeal and diluted whisky. The cold tea party should have this ""■actiee stopued. otherwise voung sheep so nurtured d «' elo P into di P s °- maniacs. —Sydney Trucn. The “drastic discipline” so fondly idolised I by Sir Hector, lias be„n carried out in South Africa at the cost of hundreds upon hundreds of lives that might have been saved if the I discipline had been less drastic and more I humane. —aibi Telegraph. | The Hawke’s Bay wcouc-n factory ytavts

under very favorable auspices. By February nest it will be in full working order, and it will have the immediate beneiit of the services of experts who are thoroughly conversant with the colonial markets.” A few months ago it was said that the district could never supply the necessary labor for such a factory. This pessimism must be dispelled. Already -lO Napier girls have been booked, and are now receiving tuition from the experts, so that the work will not be new to them wten the mill starts operations. There is, of course, room for a great deal more labor, which will be gradually I absorbed, and ii will be admitted j n alone opening up a fresh channel of industry, the company is serving a very excellent purpose indeed. The tirst meeting of shareholders takes place next Friday night, and the outlook is very promising indeed. Nominations closed yestcrdav fcr the directorate, those nominated being Messrs John M’Vay, D. A. Baxter. G. E. G. Hiehardson, C H. Cranby, H. 'Williams, aiu F. W. i Williams. With such able business men to 1 direct its operations we may confidently hope for success.—H.B. Herald.