The payment of the ransom for Miss Stone has, as
might have been expected, given great encouragement to the pre- datory classes in Eastern Europe. Four sons of wealthy Roumanian families have recently been seized by brigands and held to ransom, while in Greece, which was recently free from the pest, brigandage has once more revived. The police seem to be powerless, and there is reason to fear that in some districts the people sympathise with the criminals. The true remedy would be a Thuggee Department, with nothing to do but collect evidence against brigands and hunt them down ; but could not something be done by the old device of our barbarian ancestors ? We fancy that if the district in which the crime occurred were always compelled to pay the ransom, brigands would find their trade much too un- comfortable. A populace, even if it is not very virtuous, only loves brigands as long as it profits by them. That is just one of the cases in which collective punishment is allow- able and also effective.
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