The occasional stopping of a few travellers, the clearing out of a carriage, and even the pillaging a country house, are neither religious nor political scourges.

The brigands are not likely to scale either Heaven or the Vatican.
Thus there is still good business to be done in this line, and particularly beyond the Apennines, in those provinces which Austria has disarmed and does not protect.

The tribunal of Bologna faithfully described the state of the country in a sentence of the 16th of June, 1856.
"Of late years this province has been afflicted by innumerable crimes of all sorts: robbery, pillage, attacks upon houses, have occurred at all hours, and in all places.
The numbers of the malefactors have been constantly increasing, as has their audacity, encouraged by impunity." Nothing is changed since the tribunal of Bologna spoke so forcibly.
Stories, as improbable as they are true, are daily related in the country.

The illustrious Passatore, who seized the entire population of Forlimpopoli in the theatre, has left successors.

The audacious brigands who robbed a diligence in the very streets of Bologna, a few paces from the Austrian barracks, have not yet wholly disappeared.