Mezzoni the Brigand — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

8 - ‘MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. clined all remuneration and all honors, retiring quietly to his modest island home. It was at this period that the king began to realize the distracted condition of affairs, and the disregard of law and order which reigned in the Neapolitan territory. Might made right. Brigandage prospered. The roads and streets were dangerous even at broad day. The local authorities were weak and ineffi- cient, and little less than a reign of terror existed all over Southern Italy. The energetic monarch took in the position at once—the remedy was patent. The strong arm was required and applied with earnest purpose, until in the cities and large towns something like order was at length established, in place of the reigning chaos. The most daring char- acters, who had long lived by defying the laws, now fled to the mountains, and here in isolated bands still defied the government. The wild region which they made their home was almost inaccessible to those not familiar with the ways, and thus afforded a natural protection to the outlaws. Though comparatively isolated, these resorts were _ yet sufficiently near to populous districts, and espec- ially to the well-known routes of travel, to enable the banditti to make a hasty descent at any time, and to retreat with either prisoners or valuable booty, so that the rigor of the government in expelling the out- - laws from the cities and large towns simply changed. their field of operation. Among the notorious characters who had success- fully mocked the authorities for a series of years was a man who bore the name of Mezzoni, the dar- ing leader of the most successful band that existed in the mountains, This man had a fame extending comicboo (S.cO