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Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1939, 12 May 1880, Page 3

—Lee O. Habeis in “School Journal.”

BRIGANDS IN TURKEY. Consular reports from Salonica declare that, with tne exception of the towns and the immediate vicinity, the country is in the hands of the brigands. Thirteen distinct bands are enumerated, containing in all about 150 men ot various creeds and nationalities—Greeks, Lutzo Wallachs, Bulgarians, Albanians, and Turkish deserters. At a certain time some of the hands received subsidies from Athens, and professed to be the representatives of Hellenic aspirations, but of late they have divested themselves of this semi-political character, and play the part of simple brigands, levying black mail from Mussulmans pud Christians indiscriminately. There seems to be a certains tacit understanding that no band should poach on the other’s preserves, for there is no instance of the same individual being kidnapped a second time after ho had boon once ransomed. Their system is to support themselves by levying contributions on the peasantry, who are forced to supply them with food, shelter, and money, and who are so afraid of vengeance that they rarely report the matter to the authorities. When opportunity offers they kidnap rich proprietors or merchants for the purpose of getting their ransom. The sums demanded vary from £ISOO to £4-000. Several proprietors of farms within thirty miles of Salonica have not dared to visit their properties for the last twa years from fear ot being captured. Occasionally a demand for msney is made from men known to-ho wealthy without any attempt being made to kidnap them, and there is so little faith in the official means of protection, that such demands are generally complied with. The brigands avoid as much us possible all conflict with the military forces, but they have no tear of the local police or civil authorities, who are too often, it is said, in league with the chiefs. Certainly, when a well kwown chief comes into a village or town he lives openly at free quarters, and no attempt is made to capture him, One of the best known and most feared of the chiefs is Nike, who has carried off Colonel Synge. Whether he is a pure Greek or a Hellenizod Lutzo. Wallach is not certain, but there is little or no doubt that he is a native of Lamia, a Greek town near the Turkish frontier, and that several of his near relatives, having been convicted of brigandage, are already in prison. His name inspires terror throughout a largo part" of Thessaly. Not long ago he kidnapped two children and caused one of them to bo murdered because the £SO which he demanded as a ransom was not forthcoming. In a petition recently presented to the Bishop by the peasants ®f the neighbourhood of Aliakmon it is said that there are in the district a large number of brigands who not only rob and murder, but who carry off young girls andypaarriod women and keep them prisoners in tho mountains. From Yeria it is reported that the village of Tranit za has been attacked by a band of sixty brigands, and twenty-three peasants have been carried off. _■