the
Sassenach landlords. The Apennines, the mountains of Calabria, the Sierras
of Spain, were the homes of the Italian "banditos" and the Spanish
"bandoleros" (banished men) and "salteadores" (raiders). The forests of
England gave cover to the outlaws whose very much flattered portrait is to
be found in the ballads of Robin Hood. The "maquis," i.e. the bush of
Corsica, and its hills, have helped the Corsican brigand, as the bush of
Australia covered the bushranger. But neither forest thicket nor mountain
is a lasting protection against a good police, used with intelligence by
the government, and supported by the law-abiding part of the community. The
great haunts of brigands in Europe have been central and southern Italy and
the worst-administered parts of Spain, except those which fell into the
hands of the Turks. "Whenever numerous troops of banditti, multiplied by
success and impunity, publicly defy, instead of eluding, the justice of
their country, we may safely infer that the excessive weakness of the
government is felt and abused by the lowest ranks of the community," is the
judgment passed by Gibbon on the disorders of Sicily in the reign of the
emperor Gallienus. This weakness has not always been a sign of real
feebleness in the government. England was vigorously ruled in the reign of
William III., when "a fraternity of plunderers, thirty in number according
to the lowest estimate, squatted near Waltham Cross under the shades of
Epping Forest, and built themselves huts, from which they sallied forth
with sword and pistol to bid passengers stand." It was not because the
state was weak that the Gubbings (so called in contempt from the trimmings
and refuse of fish) infested Devonshire for a generation from their
headquarters near Brent Tor, on the edge of Dartmoor. It was because
England had not provided herself with a competent rural police. In
relatively unsettled parts of the United States there has been a
considerable amount of a certain kind of brigandage. In early days the
travel routes to the far West were infested by highwaymen, who, however,
seldom united into bands, and such outlaws, when captured, were often dealt
with in an extra-legal manner, e.g. by "vigilance committees." The Mexican
brigand Cortina made incursions into Texas before the Civil War. In Canada
the mounted police have kept brigandage down, and in Mexico the "Rurales"
have made an end of the brigands. Such curable evils as the highwaymen of