"He was an Italian immigrant who had been arrested twenty-seven times and convicted twenty-five and who came over here a couple of years ago. Within a few months of his arrival he was arrested here and sentenced to three years' imprisonment And now, although he is a professed criminal, they won't be able to deport him, because when his prison term is up, he will have been in the United States three years."
"I suppose there are a lot of Italians coming over now?" said Hamilton questioningly.
"A little over three weeks ago," was the reply, "as I heard from a friend in the Immigration Bureau, there was a funeral in a small village near Naples and not enough able-bodied civilians could be found in the place to carry the casket. All of them were in America. There are scores of towns in southern Italy where all the work—of every kind—is done now by the women, because the men have emigrated."
"What do you think about this Black Hand business?"
"I think your friend the restaurant-keeper was nearly right, only that it is being used by all sorts of crooks as well, who have no connection with either the Mafia or the Camorra. Mark you, I think those two secret societies are apt to be much misrepresented, just as the Jesuits were during the Middle Ages and the Freemasons were at other periods. The Camorra was once simply the Tammany Hall of Naples. But when, as happened last year, there were six hundred and fourteen Black Hand outrages in two States in four months it is idle to say that it does not exist in America. The Camorrist trials over the Cuocolo murders at Viterbo, perhaps the most sensational in the world since the Dreyfus case, have shown its power to be more dangerous than any one could for a moment have imagined. And the danger lies here—there are more Camorrists in New York than in Naples!"
For a moment the boy looked at the Inspector, astounded.
"You mean—" he began, and stopped.
"I mean that the worst elements of the two worst societies in Europe are concentrating in New York, and that unless rigorous measures are taken to keep them down, America will harbor graver dangers than any it has yet known. Russian nihilism, Polish anarchism, German socialism may join hands with the Sicilian Mafia and the Neapolitan Camorra to institute a criminal organization such as the world has never seen before. There are enough ignorant immigrants to yield to a wave of fear, and the Black Hand thrives and grows on terror. But, wisely held in check until they learn, these very Sicilians and Neapolitans bring much that is of value to the making of an American people."
"Oh, there couldn't be any real danger!" Hamilton exclaimed. "The spirit of American institutions would prevent such a happening; that could only be in some old-world city like Naples. The Camorra comes down from the Middle Ages, anyway."
The Inspector shook his head.