FRANCE: Happy as a Cuckoo

In the little opera house of the town of Bastia, Corsica, the French Government last week put on trial for 14 separate murders the most notorious of all Corsican bandits—André Spada.

Thirteen years ago when Spada first set out to make a name for himself with a double-barreled shotgun and a pocketful of shells, he was a plump, handsome young man, looking for all the world like a road company tenor in Cavalleria Rusticana. His reputation began to grow when he shot two gendarmes in the back, killing one. He considered the highway between Ajaccio and Sopigna his personal property, collected tribute from all travelers for years. He avenged himself on a young man who ran away with his mistress by murdering the boy’s uncle and a cousin. On the grounds that he robbed the rich, Spada was popular with the poor. Ambitious young Corsicans without a trade rallied to him. After a visit to Corsica, Singer Mary Garden “loved him so much I named my dog after him.”

In 1931 the French Government swore to catch Bandit Spada dead or alive, sent a whole regiment of gendarmes to Corsica under General Fournier. Though 200 excited newshawks were issued rifles and sent out into the scrub to join the chase, André Spada remained uncaught.

Cracking nerves, however, did what French rifles could not do. In May 1933, peasants going to mass in the village of Coggia found a hoarse, half-crazed man shouting “What have I done?” in front of the church door. A crown of thorns was in his hair and a heavy wooden cross hung from his neck. It was André Spada.

In jail the Corsican killer alternated between periods of wild religious raving, and periods of deep silence during which he knitted a great deal, made himself a number of jumpers. In the opera house courtroom last week Prisoner Spada was as mad as ever.

“I’m as happy as a cuckoo bird. I’m the tiger of the underbrush!” cried he. “I’m terribly bad tempered with bad tempered persons, but a lamb with the lambs, and just with the just.”

Evidence against Bandit Spada piled up quickly and as quickly the jury found him guilty. The judges sentenced him to the guillotine.

“Spada, you have played and lost!” cried the prosecutor. “Now, pay up!”

Madman Spada nodded his headbrightly.