Dagger Falls

A mustachioed bandit with pistols at his sash and a dagger in his hand is suddenly pounced upon by an unarmed man of burly figure clad in impeccable morning clothes. They grapple. The bandit is forced to the wall and nearly strangled. The hand that held the dagger opens and the dagger rattles to the ground. . . .

The scene just described was recently cartooned for Punch, British weekly, to visualize the recent successes of Signor Mussolini in stamping out large numbers of the secret bandit gangs or "Mafia" in Sicily (TIME, Oct. 24, Jan. 23). Punch put into the mouth of its nearly strangled brigand a gasp: "If you destroy our secret societies you kill romance." To this the burly-but-impeccable victor, Signor Mussolini, replies: "Fascismo is all the romance Italy needs!" Last week the real Signor Mussolini lived up to his cartooned likeness by ordering that suppression of the criminal class in Sardinia shall at once begin with the same drastic vigor that has proved salutary in Sicily.

Last year Sicily led Sardinia in murders by a small margin; but Sardinia completely distanced Sicily in thefts. Per 100,000 hypothetical citizens there were, in Sicily, 24 murders & 353 stealings, while in Sardinia occurred proportionately 16.2 killings and an imposing 914 thefts.

Pondering these facts, last week, seasoned travelers felt a twinge of regret that efficient, Fascist Carabinieri will now go to tidy up unspoiled, unmodernized Sardinia. Romance abides there, not principally among banditti, but in the very air and infinitely varied scene.

Sardinia, as every geographer knows, is an island some nine times larger in area than Rhode Island but only a trifle more populous. It lies in midMediterranean, almost touching the smaller but more famed French island of Corsica. By a lavish freak of Nature, Sardinia has been endowed with coastal lowlands recalling Holland, dense forests, a few crags of grandeur, rich vine and olive lands, and extensive malarial swamps. To these last the people have adapted their constitutions through long generations, and are now virtually immune to malaria.

In personality the Sardinian is grave and dignified, chivalrous and hospitable. Unfortunately he is nearly always poor and generally illiterate. Luxury to him means a tummy replete with porchettu, or sucking pig roasted upon a spit. Between piglets he subsists upon a diet featuring frue (sour milk) and a sweet fresh cheese. Hardy, he is apt not to notice fleas.

Anciently Sardinia was colonized by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Romans. By the House of Austria it was ceded in 1720 to the Dukes of Savoy in exchange for Sicily. Thus it is the modern seat of the ancient House of Savoy, now the reigning family of Italy.

Devotees of the present Sardinia wished, last week, that Signor Mussolini would not slate it for tidying up until he has dealt with a far more criminal region. Calabria, the province which forms the toe of boot-shaped Italy.

Of old, Calabria was "the Land of the Sybarites," citizens who inhabited the metropolis of Sibaris and were accused by the conquering Romans of sleeping upon rose leaves. Today its stupid people toil in almost feudal servitude upon lands chiefly owned by the Italian nobility. Murders are almost twice as common as in Sicily and thefts more frequent than in Sardinia.