“I can recommend that marmalade,” said the Canon’s wife; “the oranges came from our garden.”
While at table we spoke of joyous things; as the afternoon passed, the talk waxed serious, laughter ceased, faces grew earnest, voices grave. This little group of friends, exiles all, living in Palermo, bound together by a thousand kindnesses, had passed through deep waters. The faithful almoners of England and America, they too had worked early and late for the profughi. Here, as at Messina, and Syracuse, the most precious contribution was the moral, not the material aid. Order, discipline, in that welter of chaos were worth more than money or stores.
“These poor souls will not go to work while they are being fed, housed, and clothed by charity,” said the Canon. “When they ask me for work I am in a quandary. The working people of Palermo are all against them—naturally; there isn’t enough work to go around!” Exactly what Ignazio had said.
“Why not colonize?” I proposed. “England would do that. There must be parts of Italy where prosperous colonies might be founded. I myself have seen practically deserted villages both in the Abruzzi mountains and in the Sorrentine peninsula, where whole populations have emigrated to the Argentine Republic or to the United States.”
“This is not England!” sighed the Canon.
I said to Mrs. Bishop how much I wished to see her husband.
“Another day,” she answered. “He is still very busy with the Petrosino murder.”
“Petrosino!” Another tragedy—as if Sicily had not had enough that dreadful year. From one source and another I learned the story of the murder.
Lieutenant Giuseppe Petrosino, a detective of the New York police force, came to Palermo to look up the records of some criminals. A curious law, made in the humane intention of helping reform criminals, is in force in Italy. By this statute, passed in 1902, a discharged criminal, after a certain number of years of good behavior, is given certain papers by the authorities by which it is made to appear that there has never been a criminal charge against him. With this clean bill of health, he is given another chance to start life over again in a new country. At the same time a careful secret record of his case is kept by the authorities.
In the United States we have a law that forbids the emigration into our country of all criminals, except so called “political” criminals.