Atrocities of the Neapolitan Brigades.
--The details respecting the outrages committed by the
Neapolitan brigands increase rather than diminish in horror, as the following frightful outrages too clearly prove:
‘
I write to you full of grief and rage on account of new atrocities committed by the brigands.
At Viestri the brigands barbarously killed nine gentlemen of the Liberal party, and similar atrocities were committed in other villages.
But that which they have done in the commune of San Paola, in the district of Molise, surpasses all imagination.
On the morning of the 4th, the brigands, all dressed in the uniform of the old
Bourbon gendarmes, surprised the town, and, after having sacked the houses without exception, took the curate, Givovanni Regati, (who had the reputation of being an honest priest and good Liberal,) his brother, the syndic of the village,
Signor Antenia Capre, and having brought them out naked on the public square, they exposed them to the derision and insults of the vilest of the populace, who made common cause with the brigands, and, after this spectacle had lasted several hours, murdered them with their bayonets.
They then took the wife of the syndic and subjected her to the most horrid cruelties, and left her nearly dead.
Having learned that a certain Ginseppo Cavarano, a respectable man, was trying to escape in order to alarm the neighboring village, they arrested him, and having dressed him up as a woman, in the middle of the public square, they set fire to his dress and burnt him alive.
Hearing of the approach of a detachment of troops from and of the National Guards from the neighboring village, they be took themselves to a precipitate retreat.
After hearing of such cannibal atrocities, how is it possible to show generosity to these wretches, or to their employers?
How can we expect the common people to allow the brigands to pass on with impunity when they see them conveyed by the police?
The Carabineers have the greatest difficulty to defend the brigands from the fury of the people, when they are taking them to prison.
They are, in consequence, obliged to bring them into
Naples in the night.
Some of the brigands were followed by their wives.
’
