A Vali of Smyrna (says a writer in '"Blackwood') had the happy} inspiration of enrolling a large band of uncatchable brigands in! the ranks of the gendarmerie, on} the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief. For a short time the plan worked admirably: the new gendarmes were up to all the tricks of the trade, and gave chase te their former confreres with zeal and success. But before long the inevitable relapse from grace occurred, the converts reverted to robbery, blackmail, and other improprieties, and the Vali had to acknowledge, his experiment to be a disme, failure. Instead, however, of proscribing the backsliders and so driving them into open defiance of the Government, the wily functionary induced them by fair messages to pay him a visit in Smyrna, where, he said, he had the Sultan's instructions to distribute rewards to them; and when the band, suspecting nothing, marched into the courtyard of the Konak (government house) they were at once shot down by a company of soldiers who awaited them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.