Courts and Criminals

by Arthur Cheney Train

By far the greater portion of these criminals, whether ex-convicts or novices, are the products or byproducts of the influence of the two great secret societies of southern Italy. These societies and the unorganized criminal propensity and atmosphere which they generate, are known as the "Mala Vita."

The Mafia, a purely Sicilian product, exerts a much more obvious influence in America than the Camorra, since the Mafia is powerful all over Sicily, while the Camorra is practically confined to the city of Naples and its environs. The Sicilians in America vastly outnumber the Neapolitans. Thus in New York City for every one Camorrist you will find seven or eight Mafiusi. But they are all essentially of a piece, and the artificial distinction between them in Italy disappears entirely in America.

Historically the Mafia burst from a soil fertilized by the blood of martyred patriots, and represented the revolt of the people against all forms of the tyrannous government of the Bourbons; but the fact remains that, whatever its origin, the Mafia to-day is a criminal organization, having, like the Camorra, for its ultimate object blackmail and extortion. Its lower ranks are recruited from the scum of Palermo, who, combining extraordinary physical courage with the lowest type of viciousness, generally live by the same means that supports the East Side "cadet" in New York City, and who end either in prison or on the dissecting-table, or gradually develop into real Mafiusi and perhaps gain some influence.

It is, in addition, an ultra-successful criminal political machine, which, under cover of a pseudoprinciple, deals in petty crime, wholesale blackmail, political jobbery, and the sale of elections, and may fairly be compared to the lowest types of politico-criminal clubs or societies in New York City. In Palmero it is made up of "gangs" of toughs and criminals, not unlike the Camorrist gangs of Naples, but without their organization, and is kept together by personal allegiance to some leader. Such a leader is almost always under the patronage of a "boss" in New York or a 'padrone' in Italy, who uses his influence to protect the members of the gang when in legal difficulties and find them jobs when out of work and in need of funds. Thus the "boss" can rely on the gang's assistance in elections in return for favors at other times. Such gangs may act in harmony or be in open hostility or conflict with one another, but all are united as against the police, and exhibit much the same sort of "Omerta" in Chatham Square as in Palermo. The difference between the Mafia and Camorra and the "gangs" of New York City lies in the fact that the latter are so much less numerous and powerful, and bribery and corruption so much less prevalent, that they can exert no practical influence in politics outside the Board of Aldermen, whereas the Italian societies of the Mala Vita exert an influence everywhere—in the Chamber of Deputies, the Cabinet, and even closer to the King. In fact, political corruption has been and still is of a character in Italy luckily unknown in America—not in the amounts of money paid over (which are large enough), but in the calm and matter-of-fact attitude adopted toward the subject in Parliament and elsewhere.

The overwhelming majority of Italian criminals in this country come from Sicily, Calabria, Naples, and its environs. They have lived, most of their lives, upon the ignorance, fear, and superstitions of their fellow-countrymen. They know that so long as they confine their criminal operations to Italians of the lower class they need have little terror of the law, since, if need be, their victims will harbor them from the police and perjure themselves in their defence. For the ignorant Italian brings to this country with him the same attitude toward government and the same distrust of the law that characterized him and his fellow-townsmen at home, the same Omerta that makes it so difficult to convict any Italian of a serious offence. The Italian crook is quick-witted and soon grasps the legal situation. He finds his fellow countrymen prospering, for they are generally a hard-working and thrifty lot, and he proceeds to levy tribute on them just as he did in Naples or Palermo. If they refuse his demands, stabbing or bomb-throwing show that he has lost none of his ferocity. Where they are of the most ignorant type he threatens them with the "evil eye," the "curse of God," or even with sorceries. The number of Italians who can be thus terrorized is astonishing. Of course, the mere possibility of such things argues a state of mediaevalism. But mere mediaevalism would be comparatively unimportant did it not supply the principal element favorable to the growth of the Mala Vita, apprehended with so much dread by many of the citizens of the United States.

Now, what are the phases of the Mala Vita—the Camorra, the Black Hand, the Mafia—which are to-day observable in the United States and which may reasonably be anticipated in the future?

In the first place, it may be safely said that of the Camorra in its historic sense—the Camorra of the ritual, of the "Capo in Testa" and "Capo in Trino," highly organized with a self-perpetuating body of officers acting under a supreme head—there is no trace. Indeed, as has already been explained, this phase of the Camorra, save in the prisons, is practically over, even in Naples. But of the Mala Vita there is evidence enough.

Every large city, where people exist under unwholesome conditions, has some such phenomenon. In Palermo we have the traditional Mafia—a state of mind, if you will, ineradicable and all-pervasive. Naples festers with the Camorra as with a venereal disease, its whole body politic infected with it, so that its very breath is foul and its moral eyesight astigmatized. In Paris we find the Apache, abortive offspring of prostitution and brutality, the twin brother of the Camorrista. In New York there are the "gangs," composed of pimps, thugs, cheap thieves, and hangers-on of criminals, which rise and wane in power according to the honesty and efficiency of the police, and who, from time to time, hold much the same relations to police captains and inspectors as the various gangs of the Neapolitan Camorra do to commissaries and delegati of the "Public Safety." Corresponding to these, we have the "Black Hand" gangs among the Italian population of our largest cities. Sometimes the two coalesce, so that in the second generation we occasionally find an Italian, like Paul Kelly, leading a gang composed of other Italians, Irish-Americans, and "tough guys" of all nationalities. But the genuine Black Hander (the real Camorrist or "Mafiuoso") works alone or with two or three of his fellow-countrymen.

Curiously enough, there is a society of criminal young men in New York City who are almost the exact counterpart of the Apaches of Paris. They are known by the euphonious name of "Waps" or "Jacks." These are young Italian-Americans who allow themselves to be supported by one or two women, almost never of their own race. These pimps affect a peculiar cut of hair, and dress with half-turned-up velvet collar, not unlike the old-time Camorrist, and have manners and customs of their own. They frequent the lowest order of dance-halls, and are easily known by their picturesque styles of dancing, of which the most popular is yclept the "Nigger." They form one variety of the many "gangs" that infest the city, are as quick to flash a knife as the Apaches, and, as a cult by themselves, form an interesting sociological study.

The majority of the followers of the Mala Vita—the Black Handers—are not actually of Italian birth, but belong to the second generation. As children they avoid school, later haunt "pool" parlors and saloons, and soon become infected with a desire for "easy money," which makes them glad to follow the lead of some experienced capo maestra. To them he is a sort of demi-god, and they readily become his clients in crime, taking their wages in experience or whatever part of the proceeds he doles out to them. Usually the "boss" tells them nothing of the inner workings of his plots. They are merely instructed to deliver a letter or to blow up a tenement. The same name is used by the Black Hander to-day for his "assistant" or "apprentice" who actually commits a crime as that by which he was known under the Bourbons in 1820. In those early days the second-grade member of the Camorra was known as a picciotto. To-day the apprentice or "helper" of the Black Hander is termed a picciott' in the clipped dialect of the South. But the picciotto of New York is never raised to the grade of Camorrista, since the organization of the Camorra has never been transferred to this country. Instead he becomes in course of time a sort of bully or bad man on his own hook, a criminal "swell," who does no manual labor, rarely commits a crime with his own hands, and lives by his brain. Such a one was Micelli Palliozzi, arrested for the kidnapping of the Scimeca and Sabello children mentioned above—a dandy who did nothing but swagger around the Italian quarter.