OUTRAGE BY BRIGANDS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2298, 29 July 1880, Page 3

OUTRAGE BY BRIGANDS.

Another outrage by brigands is reported from Spain, the scene of the attack being the village of Bodes, in the province of Lerida. While the priest of the village was delivering a sermon a band of armed men, who had blackened their faces to prevent recognition, entered the church, and, striking the pavement with the butt end of their muskets, ordered the congregation to keep their seats. Three of them inarched straight to the pulpit, and having administered to the priest several blows with their fists, which stunned him, dragged him down into the vestry. In the meanwhile the members of the congregation, threatened with death by the rest of the band if they attempted to move, were paralysed with terror, and the priest was called upon to give up a large sum in gold which the robbers had ascertained that he possessed. He stoutly denied having any money in his possession ; whereupon they began to prod him in the legs and arms with their knives. This mode of torture having no effect, they began to flog him •, and he at last admitted having about £3O in his house, and offered to give it to the robbers. This failing to satisfy them, they lighted some straw and held the priest’s head over it until all his hair and eyelids had caught fire; and when his maidservant, attracted by his shrieks came to see what was the matter, they stabbed her. The priest himself was then made go on his knees, and they were about to shoot him, when one of their number who had been ransacking his house, came into the the vestry with the money which he had found. The reason why the priest had refused to make it over to the robbers was that it did not belong to him, but had just been entrusted to his care. The brigands, having attained their purpose, then took their departure, and the terror which they had inspired was such that no effort was made to follow them by any of the two or three hundred persons in the church.