THE CAMORRA IN ITALY
_We are not Carabinieri,
We are not Royalists,
But we are Camorrists—
The devil take the others!_
IN Italy, when it rains, the man on the street mutters: “_Piove!
Governo ladro!_” (“It rains! Thief of a government!”) Oddly enough,
this expression, originally coined by the _Fanfulla_, an influential
journal, to ridicule the _opponents_ of the government, really
epitomizes the attitude of the average Italian toward the central
authority. It is the vital word spoken in jest. The Italian—and
particularly the Italian of the southern peninsula—is against
government—any government, all government—on general principles.
He and his forefathers went through a grim school, and they have not
forgotten.
The Italian, however republican in form his institutions may be, is
still the subject of a monarchy, and he has never fully grasped the
Anglo-Saxon idea that even a king is subject to the law. In Italy no
one thinks of questioning the legality of an arrest. With us, to do so
is the first thought that comes. On the Continent, the fact that an act
is done by an _official_, by a man in striped trousers, places it above
criticism. No matter how obvious an error may have been committed,
one is inevitably met by the placid assertion: “The government makes
no mistakes.” Neither has the idea of the sanctity of personal liberty
ever been properly developed. There is no _habeas corpus_ in Italy.
Release on bail is legally possible, but difficult of achievement and
little availed of. A man’s house is not “his castle.” The law itself
is usually complicated and slow in remedial and criminal matters, and
justice is apt to be blind unless the right sort of eye doctor—a
deputy or a senator—is called in. Bureaucracy has perpetuated the
Italian’s inherited distrust of government and distaste for legal
process, and drives him still to seek his ends in many cases by
influence, bribery, or—the Camorra.
Rarely can we point to a social phenomenon in this country and say:
“This is so because of something a hundred years ago.” With us some one
has an idea, and presto! we are recalling judges, pulling down idols,
“elevating” women to be sheriffs, and playing golf on Sundays. Where
are the gods of yesterday? The pulse of the nation leaps at a single
click of the Morse code. An injustice in Oklahoma brings a mass meeting
together in Carnegie Hall. But the continuance of the Camorra in Italy
to-day is directly due to the succession of tyrants who about a century
ago allowed the patriots of Naples and Sicily to rot in prison or hung
them up on scaffolds in the public squares.
The Bourbon rule in the “Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”[5] was one of the
most despicable in history. In eleven days in 1793 one hundred and
twenty professors, physicians, and priests were executed by the public
hangman in Naples. This was a mere foretaste of what was coming. When
Napoleon dethroned the Bourbons in 1805 and made his brother Joseph
“King of Naples,” there dawned an era of enlightenment and reform
which continued when Joseph was succeeded by Joachim Murat in 1808;
but the Congress of Vienna in 1815 reinstated the old dynasty and
recalled Ferdinand I, who had been lurking in Sardinia, to the throne.
Then the horrors began again. A period of retrogression, of wholesale
persecutions and executions, followed. Never was there anything like
the nightmare of bloody politics which lasted through the reigns of
Ferdinand I (1825), of Francis I (1830), of Ferdinand II (1859), and of
Francis II, until the entry of Garibaldi into Naples in 1860.
The oppressions of the Bourbons and the struggle of the patriots of
Italy for freedom and the Risorgimento stimulated secret organization.
No other means to combat tyranny was, in fact, possible. To be known to
have liberal ideas meant instant arrest, if not death. Under Ferdinand
II there had been over twenty thousand political prisoners actually in
prison at one time and thirty thousand more _attendibili_, confined in
their houses.[6] The governor of Genoa complained to Mazzini’s father
because the youth “walked by himself at night, absorbed in thought.”
Said he: “We don’t like young people thinking without knowing the
subject of their thoughts.” The great society of the Carbonari had
provoked the counter-organization of the Calderoni, and had in turn
given way to the “New Italy” of Mazzini. It is said on excellent
authority that in 1820 there were seventy thousand persons in the city
of Naples alone who belonged to secret societies. In this year we first
hear of the Camorra by name, and for the next forty years it spread and
flourished until it became so powerful that the government of the “Two
Sicilies” had perforce to enter into treaty with it and finally (in
1860) to turn over to it the policing of the city of Naples. Indeed,
it may be that some such extra-legal organization was a practical
necessity if existence were to be tolerable at all.
Lombroso, in the “Growth of Crime,” writes: “When the royal postal
officials were in the habit of tampering with correspondence, when
the police were bent on arresting the honest patriots and making use
of thieves as _agents provocateurs_, the necessity of things enhanced
the value of the Camorra, which could always have a letter or a packet
safely conveyed, save you from a dagger thrust in prison, redeem you a
stolen article for a fair sum, or, when quarrels and disputes arose,
could get these settled on much more equitable terms and less costly
than any one else or indeed the ordinary process of the law.”
This was the heyday of the Camorra as an organization of criminals.
Later it developed into something more—a political ring under whose
leash the back of southern Italy still quivers.
The Neapolitan Camorra had its origin in Spain. The great Cervantes,
in “Rinconeto y Contadillo,” has drawn a marvellous picture of a
brotherhood of thieves and malefactors who divided their evil profits
_with the police and clergy_. This was “La Garduna”—the mother of the
Camorra. As early as 1417 it had rules, customs, and officers identical
with those of the Camorra of the nineteenth century, and, like it,
flourished in the jails, which were practically under its control.
Undoubtedly this organization found its way into Sicily and Naples
in the wake of the Spanish occupation of the thirteenth century, and
germinated in the loathsome prisons of the period until it was ready to
burst forth into open activity under the Bourbons.
The word _camorra_ comes from the Spanish _chamarra_ (in Italian
_gamurra_, hence _tabarra_, _tabarro_), meaning a “cloak” usually
affected by thieves and bullies. From this is derived the Spanish word
_camorra_, “a quarrel with fists,” and the phrase _hacer camorra_,
fairly translatable as “to look for trouble.” It would be difficult
to find any closer definition than this last of the business of the
Neapolitan Camorra.
Giuseppi Alongi, a pupil and follower of Lombroso, and one of the
principal Italian authorities upon the subject, says concerning the
rise of the Neapolitan organization:
“The Camorra certainly had its birth in the prisons of Naples. Old
offenders regarded themselves as aristocrats of crime, and behaved
as masters in their own households, forming a sort of privileged
class within the prison. The idea of levying taxes on newcomers
came as natural to them as that among soldiers of calling upon the
recruit to ‘pay his footing.’ That the Neapolitan Camorra is so mixed
up with religion is due to the fact that the local criminal unites
ferocity with religious superstition, while the amazing devotion of
the population to ‘Our Lady of Mount Carmel,’ who is venerated as the
symbol of maternal love, offers an easy means of exploiting their
credulity. It became the custom, therefore, to exact tolls from the
people, under the pretence that they were intended for religious
purposes. The Camorrists have four hundred feasts every year, and the
Church of Mount Carmel in Naples is still their religious centre.”
In the days from 1820 to 1860, to be a Camorrist was a matter of pride
and a rare distinction among the baser sort. So far from concealing his
membership in it, the Camorrista vaunted it abroad, even affecting a
peculiar costume which rendered him unmistakable. A red necktie, the
loose ends of which floated over either shoulder, a parti-colored sash,
and a cane heavily loaded with brass rings, marked him as a “bad man”
during this romantic period. But, however picturesque it may have been,
the Camorra soon became the most dreaded and loathsome secret society
in the world.
Only those could become members who had shown their preference for
the _mala vita_ and given tangible evidence of their criminality.
Candidates who had qualified for the novitiate proved their suitability
for the next grade by performing some brutal act, such as slitting an
old man’s throat from ear to ear.
The business of the Camorra was organized extortion, assisted by murder
and violence. The Camorrist was a bully—one who could use the knife.
In this he was instructed until he became a master in artistic stabbing
with a fair knowledge of anatomy. Various styles of knives were used
for different purposes: the _settesoldi_, for scarring and unimportant
duelling among members; the _’o zumpafuosso_, or deadly official knife,
for the “jumping duel”; the _triangolo_ for murders, etc. The actual
slashing was usually done not by the Camorrist himself, but by some
aspirant to membership in the society who desired to give proof of
his virtue, and who, rather as a favor, was permitted to take all the
chances. Accordingly the “honored” youth selected the right knife and
lay in wait for his victim, assisted by a _palo_, or “stall,” who gave
warning of danger and perhaps arranged for the victim to stumble just
as the blow was to be struck. Secret signals facilitated matters. Even
to-day, the American in Naples who is not “afraid to go home in the
dark” had best hasten his steps if he hears near by the bark of a dog,
the mew of a cat, the crow of a cock, or a sneeze, any one of which
does not carry conviction as to its genuine character. These are all
common Camorrist signals of attack; while popular tunes such as “_Oi
ne’, traseteve, ca chiora!_” (“Go in, for it rains!”) are warnings of
the approach of danger.
The Camorra levied blackmail upon all gambling enterprises, brothels,
drivers of public vehicles, boatmen, beggars, prostitutes, thieves,
waiters, porters, marketmen, fruit-sellers, small tradesmen, lottery
winners, and pawnbrokers, controlled all the smuggling and coined
bogus money; and the funds thus secured were divided among (1) the
police, (2) the members in jail, (3) the aged, (4) widows and orphans
of those who had died in the cause of crime, (5) the higher officers,
(6) whatever saint or shrine it was desired to propitiate, and (7) the
“screenings” went to the men who did the dirty work.
The Camorrists made use of picture signs for names, and a secret
symbolism to express their meanings, written or spoken. They also had
an argot, or dialect, which has impressed itself upon the language of
the entire lower class of Naples. All criminals have a jargon of their
own, often picturesque, frequently humorous, and the slang of the
Camorrist differed little from that of other associations of crooks
here and elsewhere, save in its greater volume. Much of the Camorrist
vocabulary has passed into common use, and it is difficult to determine
now what words are of strictly Camorristic origin, although the
following are supposed to be so:
_Freddare_, “to turn a man cold” (to kill).
_Agnello_, “lamb” (victim).
_Il morto_, “the dead one” (one robbed).
_La Misericordia_, “Compassion” (combination knife and
dagger).
_Bocca_, “mouth” (pistol).
_Tric-trac_ (revolver).
_Sorci neri_, “black rats” (night patrol).
_Asparago_,[7] “asparagus” (a gendarme who has been
tricked—“a stiff”).
_Si accolla_, “he sticks to it” (he shoulders the others’
crime).
In all there are said to be about five thousand words in the Camorrist
vocabulary; but a large number of these are simply Neapolitan slang,
for inventing which every Neapolitan has a gift.
No more interesting example of this slang has ever come to light than
in the secret diary of Tobia Basile (nicknamed “Scarpia Leggia”) who,
after serving thirty years in prison, returned to the haunts of men
to teach the _picciotti_ the forms and ceremonies of the society and
to instruct them in its secret language. This strange old man, more
literate than most Camorrists, kept a diary in the ancient symbolism
of the brotherhood. Having become bored by his wife he murdered her,
walled her body up in the kitchen, and recorded what he had done, thus:
May 1, “The violets are out.”
May 7, “Water to the beans.”
June 11, “I have pruned my garden.”
Aug. 10, “How beautiful is the sun.”
Sept. 12, “So many fine sheep are passing.”
Time passed, and a contractor, rebuilding the wall, came upon the
corpse. Tobia denied his guilt, but his diary was found, as well as a
Camorrist translator. “Water to the beans.” That beautiful metaphor was
shown to mean naught else but “I have killed and buried her!” And in
the face of his own diary Tobia admitted the accuracy of his record.
“Water to the beans!”
The first grade of aspirants to the Camorra was that of the _garzone di
mala vita_, or “apprentice,” who was practically a servant, errand-boy,
or valet for his masters or sponsors, and was known as a _giovine
onorato_, or honored youth. The second grade was that of the _picciotti
sgarro_, or novice, originally difficult of attainment and often
requiring from six to ten years of service. The third or final stage
was that of the _capo paranza_, head of a local gang, or “district
leader.”
The society was divided into twelve centres, corresponding to the
twelve quarters of the city of Naples, each centre being, in turn,
subdivided into _paranze_ and having a separate or individual purse.
The chief of each _paranza_ was elected, and was the strongest or
boldest man in the gang. In earlier days he combined the office of
president, which carried with it only the limited authority to call
meetings, with that of cashier, which involved the advantage of being
able to divide the _camorra_, or proceeds of crime. The leader was
entitled himself to the _sbruffo_, a percentage due by “right of
camorra”; and this percentage belongs to-day in every case to the
Camorrist who has planned or directed the particular crime involved.
The leaders of the twelve divisions met, just as they occasionally do
_now_, to discuss affairs of vital importance, but in most matters the
individual sections were autonomous.
According to the confession of an old Camorrist, the lowest grade of
the society was attained by the following rite:
A general meeting of the district was called, at which the sponsor
formally introduced the candidate to the gathering. The leader stood
in the midst of his fellow Camorrists, all of whom were drawn up in
a circle according to seniority. If the treasurer was present the
president had three votes, and the assembly was known in Camorrist
slang as being _cap’ in trino_—three in one: if absent, the society
was known as _cap’ in testa_, which means “the supreme triad.” All
stood perfectly motionless, with arms folded across their breasts and
with bowed heads. The president, addressing the neophyte, said:
“Knowest thou the conditions and what thou must do to become an
honored youth? Thou wilt endure misfortune upon misfortune, thou wilt
be obliged to obey all the orders of the novices and the solemnly
professed, and bring them useful gains to furnish them with useful
service.”
To this the neophyte replies:
“Did I not wish to suffer adversities and hardships, I should not have
troubled the society.”
After a favorable vote on the admission of the candidate, he was led
forward and permitted to kiss each member once upon the mouth. The
president he kissed twice. Certain favors were then asked of the
assembly by the neophyte, and the president made reply:
“The favors asked shall be accorded according to our rules. Our terms
of membership are these:
“First: That thou go not singing or rowing or brawling in the public
streets.
“Secondly: That thou respect the novices and whatsoever instructions
they may give thee.
“Thirdly: That thou obey whole-heartedly our professed members and
carry out their commissions.”
After a few tests of the candidate he was handed over to the “novice
master,” a full-fledged member under whom he was to serve his term of
probation. The period of his apprenticeship depended upon the zeal,
ability, and ready obedience which he displayed in the course of it. He
was absolutely at the mercy of his master, and if so commanded he must
substitute himself for another and take the latter’s crimes upon his
own shoulders; but one who thus made of himself a “martyr” was promoted
to a higher grade in the society.
Promotion to such higher grades involved stricter examination and the
Camorrist admonition:
“Shouldst thou see even thine own father stab a companion or one of the
brethren, thou art bound to defend thy comrade at the cost of stabbing
or wounding thy father; and God help thee shouldst thou traffic with
traitors and spies!”
Standing with one foot in the galleys and the other in the grave
(symbolically), he swore to kill anybody, even himself, should that be
the wish of the society. The kissing ceremony was then renewed, and the
candidate was initiated fully into the secrets of the organization. The
number of weapons in the possession of the Camorra was revealed to him,
the names of brethren under the ban of suspicion, the names of all
novices and postulants, as well as the society password and the code of
recognition signs.
These points of ritual passed, the candidate was then ready for the
blood ceremony, which consisted in tasting the blood of each member
of the assembly, drawn from a small knife-wound made for the purpose,
and finally the combat. For this necessary part of the ceremony of
initiation, the candidate was required to select an opponent from the
assembly. The champions then chose their daggers, picked their seconds,
unshirted themselves—and the fight was on. It was a rule that they
must aim only at the muscles of the arm, and the president, acting as
_capo di tiranta_ (master of combat) was there to see that the rule
was obeyed. At the first drawing of blood the combat was over, and the
victor was brought forward to suck the blood of the wound and embrace
his adversary. If the newly promoted member happened to be the loser,
he had to resume the fight later on with another champion; and not
until he had won in a test was he definitely “passed” and “raised.”
Many other bloody tests have been attributed to this ceremony of the
Camorra; but these, as well as the foregoing in its strict form, have
been largely done away with, except in the prisons, where the society
still retains its formality. There remained, as a final step in the
ritual of initiation, the tattooing of two hearts joined together with
two keys. “Men of honor ought to have heart enough for two people, that
is to say, have a large heart; men bound only to their colleagues and
whose heart is closed as it were with a double key to all others.”
Sometimes a spider took the place of the hearts, symbolizing the
industry of the Camorrist and the silence with which he weaves the web
around his victim. This tattooing is still customary among Camorrists.
The usual Camorrist tribunal consisted of a committee of three
members belonging to the district organization, presided over by the
Camorrist of highest rank among them, and settled ordinary disputes and
punishments. From this there was an appeal in more important matters
to the central committee of twelve. This latter body elected a supreme
head for the entire society, and passed on matters of general policy.
It also sat as a court of original and final jurisdiction in cases of
treachery to the society, such as betraying its secrets or embezzling
its funds, imposed the death penalty, and appointed the executioners.
Its decrees were carried out with blind obedience, although not
infrequently the death sentence was commuted to that of disfiguration.
Such, then, was the society which in 1820 already controlled the
prisons, dealt in assassination and robbery, levied blackmail upon all
classes, trafficked in every sort of depravity, and had a rank and
file upon which its leaders could absolutely rely. It had no political
creed, nor did it interest itself in anything except crime. It had
greater solidarity than the police, which was almost equally corrupt.
Dreaded by all, it was utilized by all, for it could do that which the
police could not do.
The city officials of Naples had a very tender regard for the feelings
of “the brethren of the dagger.” In 1829 certain reformers proposed
building a wall around a notoriously evil street, so that at night,
under lock and key, the inhabitants could be properly “segregated.” But
the Camorra did not take kindly to the suggestion, and a letter was
left with the functionary in charge of the matter:[8]
NAPLES, September, 1829.
SIR:
Are you not aware that in confining these poor girls in walls
you act as if they were condemned to the lowest depths of
hell? The prefect of police and the intendant who ordered
this brutal act have no heart.... We are here who have much
heart and are always ready to shed our own blood for them,
and to cut the throats of those who shall do anything toward
walling up that street. With all humility we kiss your hands.
N. N.
The street was not walled up, the prefect of the police discovering
that he had too much heart.
Having no politics, the Camorrists became, as it were, Hessians in
politico-criminal activity. They were loyal only to themselves, their
favorite song being:
“_Nui non simmmo gravanari,
Nui non simmo realisti,
Ma nui simmo Camorristi,
Cuffiano a chilli’ e a chisti!_”
(We are not Carabinieri,
We are not royalists,
But we are Camorrists—
The devil take the others!)
Under the Bourbons the police recognized and used the Camorra as
their secret agents and granted its members immunity in return for
information and assistance. Both preyed on the honest citizen, and
existed by extortion and blackmail. “The government and the Camorra
hunted with one leash.” Yet, because the police were regarded as the
instruments of despotism, the people came to look upon the Camorrists
(who, technically at least, were hostile to authority) as allies
against tyranny. It was at this period of Italian history that the
present distrust of government and distaste for law had its rise, as
well as the popular sympathy for all victims of legal process and
hatred for all who wear the uniform of the police. The Camorra still
appeals to the dread of tyranny in the heart of the south Italian to
which in large measure, by its complicity, it contributed. Thus the
love of liberty was made an excuse for traffic with criminals; thus
was fostered the _omertà_, the perverted code of honor which makes it
obligatory upon a victim to shield his assassin from the law; and thus
was born the loathing of all authority which still obtains among the
descendants of the victims of Ferdinand’s atrocious system, which,
whatever their origin, gave the _mala vita_—brigandage, the Mafia, and
the Camorra—their virulence and tenacity.
In 1848 the Camorra had become so powerful that Ferdinand II actually
negotiated with it for support; but the society demanded too much
in return and the plan fell through. On this account the Camorra
threatened to bring on a revolution! In this it was not successful,
but it now began openly to affect revolutionary ideas and pretend to
be the friend of liberty, its imprisoned members posing as patriots,
victims of tyranny.
Thus it gained enormously in prestige and membership, while the throne
became less and less secure. Ferdinand II granted a general amnesty in
order to heighten his popularity, and the Camorrists who had been in
jail now had to be reckoned with in addition to those outside. In 1859
Ferdinand died and Francis II seated himself on the quaking throne. His
prefect of police, Liborio Romano, whom history has accused of plotting
the Bourbon overthrow with Garibaldi and of playing both ends against
the middle, had either perforce or with malice prepense conceived the
scheme of harnessing the Camorra by turning over to it the maintenance
of order in the city. The police had become demoralized and needed
rejuvenating, he said. Francis II thereupon had another jail delivery,
and “Don Liborio” organized a “National Guard” and enlisted throngs of
Camorrists in it, while in the gendarmerie he recruited the _picciotti_
as rank and file and installed the regular Camorrists as brigadiers.
Then came the news that Garibaldi was marching upon Naples. Romano,
still ostensibly acting for the best interests of his royal master,
urged the latter’s departure from the capital. The revolution was
coming. In some indefinable way, people who were for the Bourbons
yesterday saw to-day the impossibility of the continuance of the
dynasty. The cat was ready to jump, but it had not jumped yet.
Whatever may have been Romano’s real motives so far as the Bourbons
were concerned, the fact remains that his control over the national
militia and police, during the days and nights just prior to the
departure of the King and the arrival of Garibaldi, resulted in a
vigilance on their part which protected property and maintained an
order otherwise impossible.[9] Garibaldi at last arrived, with Romano’s
Camorrist police on hand to cheer loudly for “Victor Emmanuel and Italy
United!” and to knock on the head or stick a knife into the gizzard of
any one who seemed lukewarm in his reception of the conquering hero.
The cat jumped—assisted by the Camorra. The liberals were in, and with
them the Camorrists, as the saying is, “with both feet.” Thus, perhaps
for the first time in history, was a society of criminals recognized
officially by the government and intrusted with the task of policing
themselves.
From 1860 on the Camorra entered upon a new phase, a sort of duplex
existence, having on the one hand its old criminal organization
(otherwise known as the _Camorra bassa_) and on the other a group of
politicians or ring with wide-spread ramifications, closely affiliated
with the society and dealing either directly with it or through its
more influential and fashionable members, much as a candidate for
office in New York might have secured the support of the “Paul Kelly
Gang” through the offices of the politician under whose patronage it
existed. This “smart set” and the ring connected with it was known
as the _Camorra alta_ or _Camorra elegante_, and from the advent
of Garibaldi to the present time the strictly criminal operations
of the society have been secondary in importance to its political
significance. Its members became not merely crooks, but “protected”
crooks, since they gave office to men who would look after them in
return, and the result was the alliance of politics and crime in the
political history of Southern Italy during the last fifty years.
It is hardly likely that foxy old “Don Liborio” anticipated any such
far-reaching result of his extraordinary manœuvre with the Camorra.
It was not many weeks, however, before the Camorrists who had been
given public office and continued under Garibaldi, began to show
themselves in their true colors, and to use every opportunity for
blackmail and private vengeance. They had been given charge of the
octroi, or taxes levied at the city gates, and these decreased, under
Salvatore di Crescenza, from forty thousand to one thousand ducats per
day. Another Camorrist collector, Pasquale Menotte, had the effrontery
to turn in, on one occasion, the princely sum of exactly four cents.
It became absolutely necessary to get rid of them at any cost, and
to drive them out of the police and army, which they now permeated.
Mild measures were found insufficient, and as early as 1862 a raid
was conducted by the government upon the organization—Sparenta, the
Minister of Police, arresting three hundred Camorrists in one day. But
he accomplished little. From this time on until 1900 the history of
the Camorra is that of a corrupt political ring having a standing army
of crooks and rascals by means of which to carry out its bargains.
During this period many serious attempts were made to exterminate
it, but practically to no purpose. In 1863 another fruitless series
of raids filled the jails of Naples, and even of Florence and Turin,
with its members; but the society continued to flourish—less openly.
The resignation of Nicotera as Prime Minister in 1876 was followed by
a burst of activity among the Camorrists, but in 1877 the government
made a serious effort to put down the Mafia in Sicily, while in
1880 the murder of Bonelli in a foul dive of the Camorra in Naples
resulted in the prosecution of five Camorrists for his murder. The
trial, like that of 1911‒12, took place, for reasons of safety, at
Viterbo. The witnesses testified freely upon every subject save the
Camorra, and could not be induced to suggest that the assassination
had been the result of a conspiracy. “The word Camorra seemed to burn
their tongues.” The jury were so impressed by the obvious terror
which the society inspired in the Neapolitans that they found all the
five—Esposito, Romano, Tiniscalchi, Langella, and Trombetta—guilty,
and they were sentenced to forced labor in the galleys.
Apparently there was a sort of renaissance of the Camorra about 1880,
at the death of Victor Emmanuel II, and under the new administration
of Humbert it began to be increasingly active in political affairs.
At this time the _Camorra alta_ included lawyers, magistrates,
school-teachers, holders of high office, and even cabinet ministers.
The writer does not mean that these men went through the rites of
initiation or served an apprenticeship with the knife, but the whole
villainous power of the Camorra was at their backs, and they utilized
it as they saw fit.
The “Ring,” affiliated as it is with the leaders of the society, is
still the most dangerous manifestation of the Camorra. Historically,
it is true, it was known as the _alta Camorra_ or _Camorra elegante_,
but in ordinary parlance these terms are generally used to describe
Camorrists more closely related to the actual district organizations,
yet of a superior social order—men who perhaps have graduated from
leadership into the more aristocratic if equally shady purlieus
of crime. These handle the elections and deliver the vote, own a
gambling-house or two, or even more disreputable establishments, select
likely victims of society’s offscourings for blackmail, and act as
go-betweens between the Ring and the organization. They also furnish
the influence when it is needed to get Camorrists out of trouble, and
mix freely in the fast life of Naples and elsewhere. The power of the
Ring reached its climax in 1900.
In return for the services of the _Camorra bassa_ in electing its
deputies to office, the government saw to it that the criminal
activities of the society were not interfered with. Prefects who
sought to do their duty found themselves removed from office or
transferred to other communes, and the blight of the Camorra fell upon
Parliament, where it controlled a number of deputies from the provinces
of “Capitanata”; all governmental interference with the Camorra was
blocked, and Italian politics weltered in corruption.
Upon the assassination of King Humbert, in 1900, the situation in
Naples was as bad as that of New York City in the days of the Tweed
Ring. The ignorant Neapolitans sympathized with the Camorrists as
against the police, and voted as they were directed. Almost all the
lower classes were affiliated in some indirect way with the society,
much as they are in New York City with Tammany to-day. The Ring
absolutely controlled all but three of the newspapers published in
the city. The lowest depths had been reached in every department of
municipal and provincial administration, and even the hospitals and
orphan asylums had been plundered to such an extent that there was
nothing left for the thieves to get away with.
At this crisis the Socialist newspaper, _La Propaganda_, courageously
sprang to the attack of the communal administration, in the persons
of the Syndic Summonte and the Deputy Casale, who, smarting under the
lash of its excoriation, brought an action of libel against its editor.
Heretofore similar attacks had come to nothing, but the facts were so
notorious that Summonte evaded service and abandoned his associate,
and Casale, facing the necessity of explaining how he could support
a luxurious establishment on no salary, endeavored to withdraw the
action. The Public Minister himself announced that no witnesses need
be summoned for the defense, and publicly expressed his indignation
that a governmental officer, Commendatore F. S. Garguilo, Sustituto
Procuratore Generale of the Court of Cassation in Naples, should have
accepted a retainer for Casale. The tribunal handed down a decision
finding that the facts asseverated by _La Propaganda_ were fully proved
and, referring to the influence of Casale, said: “The immorality thence
emanating is such as to nauseate every honest conscience, and to affirm
this in a verdict is the commencement of regeneration.”
This was, indeed, the commencement of a temporary regeneration. Casale
was forced to resign his seat in Parliament and in the provincial
council. The entire municipal council resigned, and, amid the roarings
of the Neapolitan Camorrist press, the president of the Council of
Ministers, Senator Saracco, proposed and secured a royal commission
of inquiry of plenipotentiary powers, with a royal commissioner to
administer the commune of Naples. The report of this commission, in
two volumes of nine hundred pages each, draws a shocking picture of
municipal depravity, in which Casale appeared as recommending criminals
to public office, selling places for cash, and holding up payments
to the city’s creditors until he had been “seen.” He was proved to
have received thirty thousand lire for securing a subsidy for a
steamship company, and sixty thousand lire for getting a franchise for
a street railway. It appeared that the corruption in the educational
departments passed description, that concessions were hawked about
to the highest bidder, and that in one deal—the “Scandalous Loan
Contract,” so-called—five hundred thousand lire had been divided
between Scarfoglio, Summonte, Casale, and Delieto. This Scarfoglio,
the editor of _Il Matino_, and the cleverest journalist in Naples,
was exposed as the Ring’s intermediary, and his wife, the celebrated
novelist, Matilde Serao, was demonstrated to have been a trafficker in
posts and places. The trial and exposures created a furore all over
Italy. The Prime Minister refused to continue the Royal Commission and
announced a general election, and, amid the greatest excitement, the
Camorra rallied all its forces for its final struggle in politics. But
the citizens of Naples had had enough of the Ring for the time being,
and buried all the society’s candidates under an avalanche of votes.
This was the severest blow ever dealt to the political influence of the
Camorra.
The Casale trial marks the last stage of the Camorra’s history to date.
America has had too many “rings” of her own to care to delve deeply
into the slime of Italian politics. The Camorra regularly delivers the
votes of the organization to governmental candidates, and exerts a
powerful influence in the Chamber of Deputies. It still flourishes in
Naples, and continues in a somewhat modified form its old formalities
and festivities; but its life is hidden and it works in secret. The
solidarity of the organization has yielded to a growing independence on
the part of local leaders, whose authority is often usurped by some
successful _basista_ (burglary planner). The big _coups_ become fewer
as the years go on, the “stakes” for which the criminal game is played
smaller and smaller.
Police Inspector Simonetti, who had many years’ experience in Naples,
gave evidence before the Viterbo Assize on June 8, 1911, as follows:
“The Camorra truly exists at Naples, and signifies violence and
absolutism. Formerly it had severe laws and iron regulations, and all
the gains derived from criminal undertakings were divided among all the
leaders. There was blind, absolute obedience to the chiefs. In a word,
the Camorra was a state within a state.
“To-day this collectivism, this blind obedience, exists no longer. All
the Camorrists respect one another but they act every man for himself.
“The Camorra exerts its energies in divers ways. The first rung in the
Camorrist ladder is the exploitation of one or more women; the second,
the horsefair sales and public auctions of pawned goods. The Camorrists
go to these latter with the special object of frightening away all
would-be non-Camorrist buyers. Usury constitutes another special
source of lucre, and at Naples is exercised on a very large scale. The
Camorrist begins by lending a sum of five francs, at one franc per week
interest, in such fashion that the gain grows a hundredfold, so that
the Camorrist who began with five-franc loans is able to lend enormous
sums to noblemen in need of funds. For instance, the Camorrist loans
ten thousand lire, but exacts a receipt for twenty thousand lire, and
gives goods in place of money, these goods being subsequently bought
back at low prices by the selfsame usurers. Another great industry of
the Neapolitan Camorra is the receipt of stolen goods; practically all
the receivers of such in Naples are members of the Camorra.”
Governor Abbate, who for thirty years past has been chief warder of the
prisons at Pozzuoli near Naples (the ancient Puteoli at which St. Paul
sojourned for seven days on his way to Rome), gave evidence before the
Viterbo Assize on June 13, 1911:
“In the course of my thirty years’ experience I have had the worst
scum of the Neapolitan Camorra pass through my hands. I have never
met a gentleman nor an individual capable of speaking the truth
among them. I have never been without a contingent of Camorrists in
my prison. I always follow the system adopted in most other Italian
prisons of putting all the Camorrist prisoners together in a pack by
themselves. When new inmates come, they spontaneously declare if they
be Camorrists, just as one might state his nationality or his religion.
I group them accordingly with the rest of their fellows. They know they
will be so treated; and unless we follow this system a perfect inferno
of terrorism ensues. The Camorrists seize the victuals, the clothes and
underwear of the non-Camorrist inmates, whom, in fact, they despoil in
every way imaginable.
“I come to learn the grades of my Camorrist prisoners inasmuch as
Camorrists, probationers, freshmen, and the rank and file, show
studious obedience to their seniors and chiefs, whom they salute with
the title of ‘master.’”
The Camorrist, in addition to exploiting women, still levies toll on
boatmen, waiters, cab-drivers, fruit-sellers, and porters, and, under
guise of protecting the householder from the Camorrists, extorts each
week small sums from the ordinary citizen. The meanest work of these
“mean thieves” is the robbing of emigrants about to embark, from whom
they steal clothing and money and even the pitiful little packages of
food they have provided for the voyage.
A grade higher (or lower) are the gangs of burglars or thieves whose
work is directed and planned, and the tools and means for which are
furnished by a _padrone_ or _basista_. These will also do a job of
stabbing and face-slashing at cut rates or for nothing to oblige a real
friend of the “Beautifully Reformed Society.”
More elevated in the social scale is the type of Professor Rapi or
Signor de Marinis, the _Camorrista elegante_, who on the fringe of
society watches his chance to blackmail a society woman, “arrange”
various private sexual matters for some nobleman, or cheat a drunken
aristocrat at the gaming-tables.
Last, there is the traffic in the elections, which has been so
advantageous to the government in the not distant past that its
ostentatious attempts to drive out the Camorra, made in response
to public demand, have usually been half-hearted, if not blatantly
insincere.
Yet the traditions of the Camorra still obtain, and in many of the
prisons its influence is supreme. Witness the deadly duel between
twelve Camorrists and twelve Mafiusi in 1905 in the Pozzuoli
penitentiary, in which five men were killed and the remainder had to
be torn apart at the muzzles of the infantry. Witness also, and more
strikingly, the trial and execution of Lubrano, who, confined in jail
with other Camorristi, betrayed their secrets. In formal session behind
prison walls, the “brothers” sentenced him to death, and he was stabbed
by a _picciotto_, who was thereupon “raised” to the highest grade of
the society.
The Camorrists still turn out in force for their religious holidays,
and visit Monte Vergine and other shrines in gala costume, accompanied
by their women. Drunken rioting, debauchery, and knifings mark the
devotions of this most religious sect. But they are a shoddy lot
compared to the “bravos” of the last century. At best, they are a lot
of cheap crooks—“pikers” compared to a first-class cracksman—pimps,
sharpers, petty thieves, and dealers in depravity, living off the
proceeds of women and by the blackmail of the ignorant and credulous.
It would be ridiculous to deny that the Camorra exists in Naples, but
it would be equally absurd to claim that it has the picturesqueness or
virility of ancient times. Yet it is dreaded by all—by the Contessa
in her boudoir, by the manager of the great trans-oceanic line, by the
_ragazzo_ on the street. The inquiry of the traveller reveals little
concerning it. One will be confidently told that no such society or
sect any longer exists, and with equal certainty that it is an active
organization of criminals in close alliance with the government. Then,
suddenly, some trifling incident occurs and your eyes are opened to the
truth, at first hardly realized, that the crust of modern civilization
is, in the case of southern Italy, superimposed upon conditions of
life no more enlightened than they were a thousand years ago, and that
hatred and distrust of government, ignorance, bigotry, and poverty make
it a field fertile for any sort of superstition or belief, be it in
the potency of the pulverized bones of young children for rheumatism,
the efficacy of a stuffed dove sliding down a wire as a giver of fat
harvest, or the deadly power of the Camorra. And where several million
people believe in and fear the Camorra, if for no other reason, the
Camorra or something akin to it is bound to exist.
Before long you will begin to find out things for yourself. You may
have your watch filched from your waistcoat pocket, and you may perhaps
get it back through the agency of a shabby gentleman—introduced by
the hotel porter—who, in spite of his rough exterior and threadbare
clothing, proves marvellously skilful in tracing the stolen
property—for a consideration.
You may observe that sometimes, when you take a cab, a mysterious
stranger will spring up beside the driver and accompany you to your
destination. This is the “collector” for the Camorra—the parasite that
feeds on every petty trade and occupation in the city. For the boatman
shares his hire with a man who loiters on the dock; the porter gives up
a soldo or two on every job; and the beggar divides with the Camorra
the profit from _la misericordia_.[10] Last of all, you may stumble into
one of the quarters of Naples where the keeping of order is practically
intrusted to the Camorra; where the police do not go, save in squads;
and where each householder or dive-keeper pays a weekly tax to the
society for its supposed “protection,” part of which goes higher up—to
some “_delegato_” or “commissary” of the “P. S.”[11]
Or you may enter into the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine and find
a throng of evil-faced men and women worshipping at the shrines and
calling for the benediction of the Holy Trinity upon their criminal
enterprises. It is said that sometimes they hang votive offerings of
knives and daggers upon the altars, and religiously give Heaven its
share out of the proceeds of their crimes, much as some of our own
kings of finance and merchant princes, after a lifetime of fraud and
violation of law, will seek to salve their consciences and buy an
entrance to Paradise by founding a surgical hospital or endowing a
chair of moral philosophy. But until, by chance, you meet a Camorrist
funeral, you will have no conception of the real horror of the Camorra,
with its procession of human parasites with their blinking eyes, their
shuffling gait, their artificial sores and deformities, all crawling
from their holes to shamble in the trail of the hearse that carries a
famous _basista_, a _capo paranze_, or a _capo in testa_ to his grave.
It is undoubtedly a fact that ease of living, which generates
indolence, induces moral laxity, and a society composed in part of a
hundred thousand homeless people, so poor that a few soldi represent
a feast or a festival, who sleep in alleys, on the wharves, in the
shrubbery of parks, or wherever night finds them, is a fertile
recruiting ground for criminals. The poverty of the scum of Naples
passes conception. Air and sky, climate and temperature, combine to
induce a vagabondage which inevitably is hostile to authority. The
strong bully the weak; the man tyrannizes the woman; the _padrone_
easily finds a ragged crew eager to do his bidding for a plate of
macaroni and a flask of unspeakable wine; a well-dressed scoundrel
becomes a demi-god by simple virtue of his clothes and paste-diamond
scarf-pin; the thief that successfully evades the law is a hero; and
the crook who stands in with the police is a politician and a diplomat.
The existence of the Camorra in its broad sense turns, not on the vigor
of the government or the honesty of the local functionaries, so much as
on the conditions of the society in which it is to be found.
Such is a glimpse of the Camorra, past and present, which, with its
secret relations to the police, its terrors for the superstitious and
timid, its attraction for the weak and evil-minded, its value to the
politicians, its appeal to the natural hatred of the southern Italian
for law and government, will continue so long as social conditions
in Naples remain the same—until reform displaces indifference and
incapacity, and education[12] and religion effectively unite to lift
the Neapolitans out of the stew of their own grease. This is the
sociological key to the Camorra, for _camorra_ means nothing but
moral delinquency, and moral delinquency is always the companion of
ignorance, superstition, and poverty. These last are the three bad
angels of southern Italy.
For the reasons previously stated it is not surprising that the
disclosures of 1900 had little or no permanent effect upon the
criminal activities of the Camorra. The Ring and the politicians had,
it is true, received a severe shock, but the minor criminals had not
been affected and their hold on the population remained as strong as
ever. Soon the Camorrists became as active at the elections, and the
authorities as complacent, as before, and after a spasmodic pretence
at virtue the “Public Safety” relapsed into its old relations to the
organization.[13]
The leaders of the new “Beautifully Reformed Society” were reported to
be Giovanni Rapi, a suave and well-educated gambler, the Cashier of
the organization and its chief adviser, surnamed “The Professor” for
having once taught modern languages in the public schools, at one and
the same time a member of both the high and the low Camorra, and an
international blackleg; Enrico Alfano, popularly known as “Erricone,”
the reorganizer of the society and its “Supreme Head,” the boss of
all the gangs, a fearless manipulator of elections, a Camorrist of the
new order—of the revolver instead of the knife, the confidant of his
godfather, Don Ciro Vittozzi,—the third of the criminal triumvirate,
the most mediæval of all these mediæval figures, and the Machiavelli of
Naples.
Known as the “Guardian Angel” or “Confessor” of the Camorra, this
priest was chaplain of the Naples Cemetery, and as such was accused
of unsavory dealings of a ghoulish nature,[14] but he exerted wide
power and influence, had the ear of the nobility and the entrée to
their palaces, and even claims to have been the confessor of the
late King. Once, a cabby, not recognizing Vittozzi, overcharged him.
The ecclesiastic protested, but the man was insistent. At length the
priest paid the fare, saying, “Remember that you have cheated Don
Ciro Vittozzi.” That night the cabman was set upon and beaten almost
beyond recognition. Next day he came crawling to the priest and craved
permission to drive him for nothing. Many such stories are told of
Vittozzi.
Besides these leaders, there were a score of lesser lights—de Marinis,
the “swell” of the Camorra, a mixer in the “smart set,” fond of horses
and of diamonds, a go-between for the politicians; Luigi Arena, the
scientific head of the corps of burglars; Luigi Fucci, the “dummy” head
of the Camorra; and Gennaro Cuocolo, a shrewd “basista” and planner of
burglarious campaigns, a little boss, grown arrogant from felonious
success. The cast, indeed, is too long for recapitulation.
These met and planned the tricks that were to be turned, assigned
each “picciotto” to his duty, received and apportioned the proceeds,
giving a due share to the police, and perhaps betraying a comrade or
two for good measure—a crowd of dirty rascals, at whose activities
the authorities connived more or less openly until the dual murder
that forced the Italian government to recognize the gravity of the
conditions existing in the criminal world of Naples.
Then, in the twilight of the early morning of June 6, 1906, two cartmen
found the body of Cuocolo, the “_basista_,” covered with stab-wounds
by a roadside on the slope of Vesuvius. At almost the same moment
in the Via Nardones, in Naples, in a house directly opposite the
Commissariat of Public Safety, the police discovered his wife, Maria
Cutinelli Cuocolo, stabbed to death in her bed. Both were well known
Camorrists, and the crime bore every indication of being a “vendetta.”
The first inquiries and formalities were conducted quite correctly.
The police arrived on the spot and reported. The magistrate came more
deliberately, but in due course. The two places where the crimes
had occurred were duly examined, the two autopsies made, and a few
witnesses heard. So far, everything had gone on just as it might have
in New York or Boston.
But then the Camorra got busy and things began to go differently.
Meantime, however, the police had received an anonymous letter, in
which the writer alleged that upon the night of the murder (June 5) a
certain dinner party had taken place at an inn known as “Mimi a Mare”
at Cupra Calastro in the commune of Torre del Greco, within a hundred
yards of the scene of the homicide, at which the guests present were
Enrico Alfano, Ciro Alfano, his brother, Gennaro Ibello, Giovanni
Rapi, and another. While they were drinking wine and singing, a man
suddenly entered—Mariano de Gennaro—and made a sign to Alfano, who
pledged the visitor in a glass of “Marsala” and cried, “All is well. We
will meet to-morrow.” This the police easily verified, and the diners
were thereupon all arrested and charged with being accomplices in the
murder, simply because it appeared that they had been near by. There
was no other evidence. Perhaps the wise police thought that if arrested
these criminals would confess. At any rate, the merry-makers were all
locked up and Magistrate Romano of Naples began an investigation. At
this juncture of the drama entered Don Ciro Vittozzi, girded in his
priestly robes, a “Holy Man,” in the odor of sanctity.
He hastened, not to the magistrate having the case in charge, but to
another, and induced him to begin an independent investigation. He
swore by his priestly office that his godson, Ciro Alfano, was innocent
as well as the others. He whispered the names of the real murders—two
ex-convicts, Tommaso De Angelis and Gaetano Amodeo—and told where
the evidence of their guilt could be obtained. He produced a witness,
Giacomo Ascrittore, who had overheard them confessing their guilt and
the motive for the murder—revenge because Cuocolo had cheated them
out of the proceeds of still another homicide. A police spy, Antonio
Parlati, and Delegato Ippolito, a Commissary of police, gave their
active assistance to the crafty priest. The prisoners were released,
while in their stead De Angelis and Amodeo were thrown into jail.
Then the storm broke. The decent men of Naples, the Socialists, the
honest public of Italy, with one voice, demanded that an end should
be put to these things—and the Camorra. The cry, taken up by the
unbought press, swept from the Gulf of Genoa to the Adriatic and to
the Straits of Messina. The ears of the bureaucracy burned. Even
Giolitti, the prime minister, listened. The government put its ear to
the ground and heard the rumble of a political earthquake. They are
shrewd, these Italian politicians. Instantly a bulletin was issued that
the government had determined to exterminate the Camorra once and for
all time. The honest and eager King found support ready to his hand
and sent for the General commanding the Carabinieri and intrusted the
matter to him personally. The General at once ordered Captain Carlo
Fabbroni to go to Naples and see what could be done. Fabbroni went,
summoning first Erminio Capezzuti and Giuseppi Farris, non-commissioned
officers of the rank of Maresciallo,[15] sleuths of no mean order.
In two months Capezzuti had ensnared Gennaro Abattemaggio, a petty
thief and blackmailer and an insignificant member of the Camorra,
and induced him to turn informer against the society, and the house
of Ascrittore was searched and a draft of what it was planned that he
should testify to upon the charges against De Angelis and Amodeo was
discovered _written in the hand of Ippolito, the Delegato of Police_!
Thereupon the spy, Parlati, and Ascrittore were both arrested and
thrown into prison on the charge of calumny. Vittozzi, the priest, was
arrested for blackmail, and his residence was rummaged with the result
that quantities of obscene photographs and pictures were discovered
among the holy man’s effects! Abattemaggio made a full confession
and testified that the five diners at “Mimi a Mare”—the first
arrested—had planned the murders and were awaiting at the inn to hear
the good news of their accomplishment.
According to his testimony, Cuocolo and his wife had been doomed
to death by the central Council of the Camorra for treachery to
the society and its decrees. Cuocolo, ostensibly a dealer in
antiquities, was known to have for many years planned and organized
the more important burglaries executed by his inferiors. Owing to
his acquaintance with many wealthy persons and aristocrats he was
able to furnish plans of their homes and the information necessary
successfully to carry out his criminal schemes. In course of time he
married Marie Cutinelli, a woman of doubtful reputation, known as “La
Bella Sorrentina.” She, for her part, purchased immunity for Cuocolo
by her relations with certain police officials, and her house became
the scene of Camorrist debauchery. Thus, gradually, Cuocolo in turn
affiliated himself with the police as a spy, and, to secure himself,
occasionally betrayed an inferior member of the society. He also grew
arrogant, defied the mandates of the heads of the society and cheated
his fellows out of their share of the booty. For these and various
other offences he was doomed to death by the Camorrist tribunal of high
justice, at a meeting held upon May 26, 1906, and presided over by
Enrico Alfano. He and his wife—who otherwise would have betrayed the
assassins to the police—were thereupon stabbed to death, as related
above, on the night of June 5, 1906, by divers members of the Camorra.
The adventures of Capezzuti, who, to accomplish his ends, became a
companion of the canaille of Naples, form a thrilling narrative. For
our present purposes it is enough to say that in due course he formed
the acquaintance of Abattemaggio, visited him in prison, and secured
from him a list of the Camorrists and full information relative to the
inner officers and workings of the organization.
Meanwhile Enrico Alfano having been released from custody had for
a while lived in Naples in his usual haunts, but, on learning that
the Carabinieri had been ordered to take a hand in investigating the
situation, he had gone first into hiding at Afragola, a village near
Naples, and had afterward fled to New York, where he had been arrested
later in the year by Detective Petrosino and sent back to Havre, while
Italian police officers were on their way to America to take him
back to Naples. Luckily, the French government was notified in time,
so that he was turned over to the Italian government instead of being
set at liberty, and was delivered to the Carabinieri in June, 1907, at
Bardonacchia, on the frontier, together with fourteen other criminals
who were being expelled from French territory. Then Capezzuti, armed
with the confession of Abattemaggio, made a clean sweep of all the
Camorrists against whom any evidence could be obtained and conducted
wholesale raids upon their homes and hiding places, with the result
that Rapi and the others were all arrested over again.
During the next four years the Carabinieri found themselves blocked at
every turn owing to the machinations of the Camorra. Abattemaggio made
several independent confessions, and many false and fruitless leads
had to be run down. The police (“Public Safety”) were secretly hostile
to the Carabinieri and hindered instead of helped them. Indeed, they
assisted actively in the defence of the Camorra. Important documents
were purloined. Evidence disappeared. Divers magistrates carried on
separate investigations, kept the evidence to themselves, and connived
at the misconduct of the police. The Delegato Ippolito and his officers
were tried upon the denunciation of Captain Fabbroni, and _were all
acquitted_, for the Carabinieri were not called as witnesses, and the
public prosecutor who had asked for a three-year jail sentence did not
even appeal the case! Each side charged the other with incompetence and
corruption and—nothing happened.
The defendants, numbering thirty-six in all, were finally brought to
trial at the Assize Court at Viterbo, forty miles from Rome, in the
spring of 1911, and at the present time[16] the proceedings are still
going on. The case is, in fact, one of the most sensational on record
and the newspapers of the civilized world have vied with one another in
keeping it in the public eye during the year or more that has elapsed
since the jury were empanelled, but there is no direct evidence as
to the perpetrators of the homicides, and, unfortunately, unless the
jury find that some of the Camorristi in the cage actually planned
and executed the murder of the Cuocolos, the consequences to the
defendants will not be serious, as mere “association for delinquency”
with which most of them are charged is punishable with a shorter term
of imprisonment than that which will have been suffered by the accused
before the conclusion of their trial. Under Article 40 of the Italian
Penal Code, the defendants get credit for this period, so that in
most instances a verdict of guilty at Viterbo would be followed by
the immediate discharge of the prisoners.[17] This is the case with
Rapi—although the evidence has brought out a new offence for which he
may still be prosecuted. And, as blackmail, for which that astounding
rascal, Don Ciro Vittozzi, is being tried, is punishable with but three
to five years imprisonment, “that Holy Man,” as he is termed by Alfano,
will probably never be compelled to retire to a governmental cloister.
But whatever the result of the trial, it is quite unlikely that the
prosecution will have any lasting effect upon the Camorra, for while
this cage full of petty criminals has engaged and is engaging the
entire resources of the Italian government a thousand or so others
have come into being, and an equal number have grown to manhood
and as _picciotti_ have filled the places temporarily left vacant
by their incarcerated superiors. Nay, it is even probable that the
public exploitation of the activities of the society will give it a
new standing and an increased fascination for the unemployed youth of
Naples.