30 DEAD IN SICILIAN RISING
Bands of Armed Peasants Roaming in Rural Districts
PARIS, Oct. 13--Newspaper dispatches from Rome state that about thirty personas have been killed in encounters between armed peasants and troops in Sicily. There were many wounded.
The unreast among the peasants is increasing and bands of armed peasants are roaming throughout the rural districts.
A Rome dispatch dated Oct. 10 announced the revolt of 4,000 peasants against the military in Caltanisetta, the central province of the island, where the historic sulphur mines are. The dispatch stated that the cause of the revolt was the attempt of the Sicilians to gain possession of the land, and that they had succeeded in driving the tropps out of Riesi, a town of 15,000 inhabitants, fourteen miles south of the town of Caltanisetta, and near the mines.
Riesi was the destination of Lieutenant Petrosino of the New York Police, who was sent to Italy to establish the identity of certain members of the Mafia then in America, and he was about to start for that place when he was assassinated in the Piazza Marina in Pelermo [sic] one evening ten years ago last March.
Sicilians have always resented the presence of troops among them, but since the armistice it has been found necessary to use them for police work on the Island, replacing the favorite Carabinieri or force of State Police locally recruited and officered, who were needed elsewhere.
