In one of the little side streets Camela suddenly stopped with an exclamation of disgust, and pointed to some boys with a plate of macaroni. They were shoveling it into their mouths with their fingers in the fashion that is met with only in Naples.
After we had passed through the splendid business arcade, the Galleria Umberto, had seen the Royal Palace and other wonders, we came suddenly to a little street which has a peculiar reputation in Naples. It is the Vicolo del Pallonetto. Many years ago, when both the Mafia and Camorra were flourishing institutions in Italy, some strange things happened in this street.
It is so steep that it is paved with stones set like stairs, and many are the dead who have been found there at dawn. Now the street is inhabited for the most part with honest people of the Neapolitan brand of that virtue, and it has the distinction of having sent great numbers of street-piano Italians to America. “The dago with the monkey” was the pioneer of Italian emigration to the United States; then came the lemon-seller, who took to the banana and peanut business. Some people take it as a matter of course that bananas and peanuts have their home in Italy. An Italian fruit-vender whom I know tells me he has people ask him nearly every day whether he has any Italian bananas. The truth is that both bananas and peanuts are as rare in Italy as alligator pears in New York. Several house-owners in this street are retired hand-organ players who have made substantial fortunes in America in other years.
The Storied Vicolo del Pallonetto in Naples
As we came through the street with our trailing, staring, interested party, scores of persons with relatives in America came out of the houses or called down from the balconies, desiring that we look up their friends in the States and take them messages. Lest some who read these lines may find in them fresh cause to raise the Mafia bugaboo, I will repeat an earlier assertion: while it is no use denying that once the Mafia was a large, well-organized and most murderous society, and that for a long period it built up a record of atrocious crimes, extortions coupled with murders, the stringent measures adopted in Italy have suppressed it so effectually that actual Mafia members are only a few middle-aged or old men, who keep their allegiance only for fear of their old comrades. No man dares raise his voice to-day and call himself “Mafite” except in America, and here the man who does it is a common criminal, trading on the terrors of the old bloody band.
This country was greatly roused over the operations of a secret society in New Orleans, and much was written and said about the Mafia at the time. It is true some of the men were old Mafiti, but I have the word of an Italian secret-service official of high rank that the band was a purely independent organization. About a year ago a terrible murder was committed by Italians in New York, and there was not one of the great leading dailies and the reviewing periodicals but pronounced it an outbreak of a Mafia band. A number of men were arrested, with strong proof against them, and they were labeled “The Band,” and connections with other Mafia bands sought for in Buffalo, Chicago, New Orleans, and elsewhere. Very serious editors discussed “the growth of the Mafia in America” and “the frightful influx of criminal Italians.” The whole had considerable influence on the Shattuc bill. The truth of the matter is that “The Band” was merely a small gang of counterfeiters, most of them men of such undesirable qualities that they would never have been able to gain admission to the Mafia; and they were no more Mafiti, strictly speaking, than are the members of the American Board of Foreign Missions. I repeat, “the Mafia in America” is nothing but a bugaboo. Men who belong to small criminal gangs used the word as a means of extortion, and the mysterious murders which happen frequently—always with Italians as the victims—are private vendettas. When we consider that the Sicilian considers it just as much his inherent right to stab a man who has done him a great wrong as the American Southerner to lynch a negro who has turned beast, and that criminal Italians in America work astounding injustices on their gullible countrymen, it is a wonder that there are not more mysterious murders than there are. The deportation from America of about six shiploads of Italian parasites who live on the labor of their fellows would put an end to all such things in this country. The average Italian living in America would rather go to prison for five or ten years than be deported. And many an Italian gladly goes to prison to be maintained while he learns a trade and how to read and write English.
It seemed strange indeed to be leading a company of honest country folk along a street so noted for its dark crimes, but in the hearty greetings and hospitality of the people about us in the Pallonetto there was no sign of the blackness of that other day.
It was most amusing when I piled the whole crowd on a car bound out toward Possilipo, past the villas on the northern rim of the wonderful bay. I had let many cars go by till I saw one coming that was nearly empty, and when we were all in we nearly filled it. The boys all wanted to sit together. They were in high glee, and crowded nine into one seat, to the dismay of the conductor and the entertainment of the other passengers. The conductor stopped the car and straightened them out, distributing them into empty places. When the car was going at full speed I looked back and saw that every one was holding on to the seat for dear life, and watching Antonio and myself anxiously to see if we gave any sign that we were in danger. Having occasion to change cars, Concetta and Camela lost their heads and sprang upon the other car while it was still in motion. Antonio and the conductor caught them and lifted them up, or else one or the other would certainly have been hurt. If our people were so overwhelmed by life in Naples I wondered what they would do in New York. However, before this evening trip was over, and we went back to the Albergo della Rosa, my wife and I both remarked a change that had come over all, especially the younger ones. It was one of the first displays of their adaptability,—one of the best characteristics of the Italians now pouring into America. In a few hours they had got a fine grasp on city ways, and the people we brought back to the emigrant lodging-house behaved far differently from those we had taken away. The wild look was gone from Concetta’s eyes, and only in the roar of Broadway did I see it again.
There is no part of southern Italy where the flea is not a bloodthirsty brigand, but in Naples he seems to partake of the characteristics of the city and is clever, wily, bold, and—oh! so numerous. In the Albergo della Rosa, that night, it really seemed that the vermin of southern Europe, brought to the lodging-house by emigrants from all lands, had assembled for an international clinic, and we were the subjects. If that great man who makes animals talk in his books had only been there, he would have heard the Grecian bedbug telling the Russian Jew louse that he and the Syrian sand-gnat had just had a choice nip of raw American that had been pointed out to him by the Calabrese fleas who were first-cousins of their hosts the Neapolitans.