OUT OF STYLE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 252, 16 June 1932, Page 7

OUT OF STYLE

BANDltRY TO-DAY raiders estimated TO number sevbral miLlions. campaigNs to ChECK them Randitry is _going out of style in many parts of the world. In Italy Mussolini's campaign^against the Mafia practically wiped out that organisation last year, .when 122 , members ; hrought into court in iron cages, were convicted, though it was difficult to get witnesses to testify against them. Enraged, the Mafia' members hurled their s'hoes through the cars at the sentencing judges, says the New York Times. In India, the thugs,- with whom the gentle art of strangling strangers with silk handkerchiefs was a religious rite, have all departed for another world, leaving only their name behind them. Afghanistan has cleared up the northern part of the country of insur- - gents from the Soviet Central Asian republics who formeriy used her mountains as a base for raids iri their own country, and has now tUrned her attention to cleaning up the Khyber Pass. Zog, the mountairi chieftain who hecame King of Albania, is in^tent on wiping out the tribal enmities that made possible his rise to power. But if banditry is passing, it has by no means gone. Dispatches from China often tell of the depredations of bbndit hordes in that country. Though first offenders are punished by anipiitation of their hands and feet, and though the heads of captured constant offenders dangle fr.om poles for all to see and consider, no part of China is free from brigands. Their number has been estimated at no less than 2,000,000. In the north-west of China banditry is a recognised profession. Boys are taught to ride swiftly, to appraise a lonely travellers wealth at a glance, »to rob, steal, and murder. In the south-east brigandage is immemorial. There cities are not exempt even from boys of sehool age who swoop down, sack the towns, murder some of the inhabitants, capture others for ranSom, and then, as a rule, disappear. Tali, a large city in Yunnan, for four years was in the hands of bandit chief Cliang Chibah, who, though he was small and stuttered, had the strength of many men. In the cities of other provinces wealthy merchants dare not venture out of doors without a bodyguard lest they be kidnapped. The hostage is ordinarily treated well, and one kidnapping seems to biiild up immunity from further attacks. The police ordinarily are powerless against the bandits. >In fact, since the overthrow of the Manehu dynasty attempts to check banditry .have been so ineffectual that the gangs are increasing rather than decreasings In recent years the Commfinity bandit has appeared. He scorns descent on a town for mere pillage. Instead, when he captures a city he stays there, destroying all official buildings and symbols of the old regime and setting up Soviets. The Communist bandits of China call themselves patriots. So do many of the bandits in Mexico. Since the days when General Pershing went in pursuit of Villa, the border brigands in curtain-fringed sombreros are essential to any motion picture of the south-west. In reality, they are now comparatively inactive. The native chieftains who descend on caravans crossing the Sahara and the Sudan are not altogether products of romantic imaginations. In Ethiopja there are many small bands of thirty or forty horsemen who will not attack foreigners — who shoot too straight — but are ready to gallop out of their canyon hiding places when they spy camel trains driven by men of- ' adjoining tribes, their 1 ifelohg enemies. These bandits are called shiftas. But outside Timbuctoo, at the other side of Africa, not even Euf opeans, are safe.