... The
prefect...endeavored to arrest the murderer, but [his Albanian]
village took up his cause, and the gendarmes returned empty-handed.
The prefect ... marched upon the offending village at the head of
three hundred regular troops. ... The village did not resist, but it
still refused to give evidence against the guilty man. The prefect
returned to Ochrida with forty or fifty prisoners, kept them in gaol
for three or four days, and then released them all. ... To punish a
simple outbreak of private passion in which no political element was
involved [the prefect] had to mobilize the whole armed force of his
district, and even then he failed.'
Robbers and brigands operated with impunity: 'Riding one day upon
the high-road ..., I came upon a brigand seated on a boulder ... in
the middle of the road, smoking his cigarette, with his rifle across
his knees, and calmly levying tribute from all the passers-by."
Extortionists, not police, were in control: "A wise village ...
[has] its own resident brigands. ... They are known as rural guards.
They are necessary because the Christian population is absolutely
unarmed and defenceless. To a certain extent they guarantee the
village against robbers from outside, and in return they carry on a
licensed and modified robbery of their own.
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