Deeds Of Brico

The Remarkable Career of Corsica's Most Noted Bandit. 

Sent to the Mountains an Outlaw Through an Unfortunate Love Affair — His Tragic Ending. 

The recent death of Jean Baptiste Tramoni Brico, the famous Corsican bandit, brought to a close a career of crime scarcely paralleled in history. 

Brico was a true hero of romance in that he was urged to his course of bloodshed by an unfortunate love affair. He loved and was beloved by his cousin, Josephine Tramoni, but the girl's father refused his consent because of Brico's poverty. 

For two years thereafter whenever he met Josephine's father Brico asked him for his daughter and was as regularly refused. 

Finally in August 1894, Father Tramoni, exasperated at his pertinacity, was unwise enough to say that never in his life would he consent to the marriage. Brico's hand slid to his knife at once, but such hasty action would be contrary to the Corsican code of honor. He waited a month, then shot Father Tramoni from behind a hedge, and, not stopping to get his bride, he made for the hills. 

The vendetta thus established differed from the traditional Corsican feud, which demands an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life from any member of the offender's family. The Tramonis were in duty bound to avenge their father's death but instead of making war on Brico's family in general they centered all their energies on catching him. 

The government stepped in to aid them. Brieo became a will o' the wisp. He was here, there and everywhere just before the Tramonis and the gendarmes. In the mountains he found a fellow spirit in one Giovanni, and the two performed enough deeds of valor to establish a saga. Had the government not lent a hand Brico's end might have come sooner than it did, for general sympathy was not with him. But country folk never have a liking for the police and did all they could to thwart them. Moreover, they were greatly afraid of the two bandits. In the little village of Mola they had seen death come mysteriously to four persons suspected of having given the police news of the outlaws. 

This so aroused the authorities that they arrested the whole Brico family — father, mother, uncles, aunts and cousins — charging them with giving aid and comfort to the outlaw. The day of the trial Brico, just to show how he felt about it, shot a Tramoni relative, and the following day he shot the gendarme who arrested his mother. Thence on murders followed in quick succession. 

Last November he killed a cartman whose sole offense was carrying some household furniture belonging to one of the Tramoni families. That was the beginning of the end, and the end he brought on himself. His last crime turned the whole island against him. He went down into the village of Mola a few months ago and deliberately shot and killed the seven-year-old son of the murdered Tramoni. 

From that day he was hunted by every one. His companion, Giovanni, had been killed the year before In an encounter with the police. The two persons who still stood by him were his mother and an aunt. One day last May at noon he bid goodbye to his mother, telling her she would probably never see him again. He went to his aunt's house in a neighboring village, and when at night he was leaving it to go to the mountains he was ambushed and killed. Now the gendarmes are after his slayers. The total list of his victims numbered around two dozen, which is a good record even for a Corsican.