How many Italians there are in the United States I do not know. It is questionable whether any one else knows exactly. We certainly know that there are several millions of them. My interest in inquiring in Naples, so far as I was able, into the workings of the Maffia and the Camorra, was to find out, if I could, what power they were alleged to have over their own countrymen.
In pursuance of these facts, I ran up against a facchino. A facchino is a common porter in Italy.
I said to one of my facchino friends: "Can you not make me acquainted with some friend in the Maffia Society?"
He was a genuine lounger, a stevedore, a longshoreman—and a big man.
He said to me, in effect: "Are you not wise enough to go into that park, where you can meet anybody, and find out all you want to know about the Maffia or the Camorra?"
I said: "Yes, I suppose I am. But what will it cost?"
"Why, you just go over there. Perhaps you will find somebody of the stripe you want; perhaps you won't."
I made no discoveries that were of any value. But what is to be said about my friend, the facchino, and the Maffia and the Camorra? I look at it this way. If these people have quarrels which so concern themselves, then let them proceed on their own lines. If they have quarrels in my country, and think that by any chance their secret societies can rule my country, they have terribly mistaken their calling. They are not so dangerous as the newspapers make them out to be. They believe, true enough, in their end of the game, to a finish, which can sometimes be disturbing.
I asked my facchino friend what he thought in general of the people who might be called Maffia or Camorra in the park which he suggested.