England, and their like in the States, are not to be compared with the
"Ecorcheurs," or Skinners, of France in the 15th century, or the
"Chauffeurs" of the revolutionary epoch. The first were large bands of
discharged mercenary soldiers who pillaged the country. The second were
ruffians who forced their victims to pay ransom by holding their feet in
fires. Both flourished because the government was for the time disorganized
by foreign invasion or by revolution. These were far more terrible evils
than the licence of criminals, who are encouraged by a fair prospect of
impunity because there is no permanent force always at hand to check them,
and to bring them promptly to justice. At the same time it would be going
much too far to say that the absence of an efficient police is the sole
cause of brigandage in countries not subject to foreign invasion, or where
[v.04 p.0564] the state is not very feeble. The Sicilian peasants of whom
Gibbon wrote were not only encouraged by the hope of impunity, but were
also maddened by an oppressive system of taxation and a cruel system of
land tenure. So were the Gauls and Spaniards who throughout the 3rd and 4th
centuries were a constant cause of trouble to the empire, under the name of
Bagaudae, a word of uncertain origin. In the years preceding the French
Revolution, the royal government commanded the services of a strong army,
and a numerous _marechaussee_ or gendarmerie. Yet it was defied by the
troops of smugglers and brigands known as _faux saulniers_, unauthorized
salt-sellers, and gangs of poachers haunted the king's preserves round
Paris. The salt monopoly and the excessive preservation of the game were so
oppressive that the peasantry were provoked to violent resistance and to
brigandage. They were constantly suppressed, but as the cause of the
disorder survived, so its effects were continually renewed. The offenders
enjoyed a large measure of public sympathy, and were warned or concealed by
the population, even when they were not actively supported. The traditional
outlaw who spared the poor and levied tribute on the rich was, no doubt,
always a creature of fiction. The ballad which tells us how "Rich, wealthy
misers were abhorred, By brave, free-hearted Bliss" (a rascal hanged for
highway robbery at Salisbury in 1695) must have been a mere echo of the
Robin Hood songs. But there have been times and countries in which the law
and its administration have been so far regarded as e