Since the publication of PALICIO, unexpected light has been thrown on
the married history of _Palicio_ and _Margaret_. It would seem that
they had a son, who was probably named after his maternal uncle, the
chief Justiciary: for in March 1891 a half-witted Sicilian, named
_Manuel Palizzi_, or _Palicio_, was among the Italians who were
executed by the mob in _New Orleans_, for being concerned in the
murder of the head of the police. Though the mental condition of this
unfortunate fellow was such as to make his responsibility questionable,
yet his connection with the _Mafia_ society, and with their motives
and crimes, points, as unmistakably as his name, to his ancestor in
my play, terribly degraded though he was in body as in mind. It is
possible that some of our fanatical anarchists may be similarly the
prey of a depraved atavism, and be impelled by a fermentation of the
sour dregs of an old puritanic heroism. I hope that the family is
now extinct. The late _Professor Freeman_ in the introduction to his
_History of Sicily_, contributed to the literature of my play, by
giving a careful and full account of what I assumed to be the origin of
the family name.
1894.