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Show r. h ' " " iH, v - u 'V - If. ; , i l s- ? M ' U t 4 I it Ui E i f : t " . v' Ulv , l? , f " ! S J1 r' " - " i' II l ft sl O 1 t ;.H r 7 v " W I J MM h H ?i . p ii 1 1 j T!iE Camorra, the dread Italian secret society, thrives and will ever thrive In Naples so long as the profoundly depressed conditions of economic and intellectual in-tellectual poverty subsist, but they and the world at large will never be able to understand how, In spite of the high degree of civilization of our modern mod-ern times, the Camorra can easily commit com-mit daring robberies, assaults, atrocious atro-cious murders and other excesses of Inconceivable ferocity and still have ; the almost complete certainty of being be-ing left systematically unpunished, re- lying partly on its members' secrecy. which Is the very gospel of this criminal crim-inal association, partly on the weak-, weak-, oess of public officials. For every hundred hun-dred Camorrists that are caught there are other thousands who will come to the front. As happens on the morrow of a deadly battle where the etat majeur has been dispersed by the shrapnel, the cadets are promoted In i masses to the higher ranks; and the I Camorra's cadets, bolder than ever, ! are eager to excel their leaders. The prisons are one of the chief fields of Camorristic extortion, either rjf money from the weH to do prison-zr prison-zr to provide wine, tobacco and fruit, ar of personal slavery, In the case of a member in reduced circumstances. The prisons being divided into sections, sec-tions, each section chooses a provisional provision-al chief, who rules over the whele section sec-tion through orders which he trans-' mits by fellow prisoners with special signs, conventional refrains or scrawled scrawl-ed messages smuggled In bread or otherwise. oth-erwise. Five years ago a great lady of Naples drove out to take the air in the Villa Nazionale, that strip of park by the sea. She was blithe and smiling, for royalty was to drink tea with her at five. There came riding by a big man, all gold chains and diamonds, dia-monds, on a young horse. He was De Marinis, boss of one of the election districts of Naples, a plumed chief of the Camorra. Was the great lady's coachman at fault? In any case, there was a collision and the mighty politician was rolled In the dirt. He got to his feet, cursing oh, a black stream of blasphemy bubbled from his mouth! He cursed and spat into i her carriage. As much of it as could be told the great lady told the duke of Aosta. That Indignant prince vowed lo pull down this toppling Insolence. What the duke of Aosta did was to go straight to the king. When his majesty was heir to the throne he lived for many years In Naples. None better than he knew the power of the Camorra; none better than he knew that his ministers looked to It for a governmental majority in Naples; but he said: "Stamp them out If you can. I am with you In this fight." And king and duke planned the war on the Camorra. There was no pretense of trusting the magistracy of the police rat-ridden, both, with Camorra corruption. cor-ruption. The work was given to the army. Notably it was given to the military police more notably still to Capt. Fabronl of the Carabineers, a smart young Roman officer, all brain and pluck. And the chiefs of the Camorra took the air of the Villa Nazionale on their tall horses, they talked politics and crime In the smart Cafe ."''ortunlo in the Galleria; they supped at Santa Lucia Lu-cia and took their ease. They neither knew nor cared that Fabronl, captain of the carabineers, was at work. Especially Es-pecially they did not know that Fabronl Fab-ronl had loosed among them a soft-footed soft-footed Roman hound one Capezzuto. In and out of the dark holes of the Camorra this devil of a man slipped sometimes posing as a criminal, a fugitive, fu-gitive, a beggar, till they laid the oath of the Camorra on him and told him things best untold. But the true work he did was to find a traitor. And what a traitor! Get a Camorra Chief. The great chiefs of the Camorra were quite at ease. Erricone Alfano, who had been the chief since 1893. resigned that high post and contented himself with hlB district leadership of the Vlcaria, He even made a trip to New York, where he was feted and banqueted. Fuccl reigned In hlssttad. Then the blow fell. One night the carabineers gathered In over two score Camorrists of high and low degree, good Italians and bad, sachems and outlaws. They took Fucci, the chief, and De Marinis, whose insolence had drawn down the lightning; they took Prof. Itapl, treasurer of the Camorra and a district leader of the old school, a gambler, a bon vlvant, a scholar of a sort; the great Erricone Alfano was arrested In New York. Others, too, were taken in the net more negligible negli-gible men, thieves, bad husbands, day sleepers, pickpockets, kidnapers, and rogues of the Chlaia and the Vlcaria the larva of the Jails and the slums. That romance might not wholly die, they netted a blithe girl of Naples, Na-ples, Maria Slendardo, and kept her to decorate the Iron cage of Vlterbo. For five years these prisoners lay In Irons. Many of them died. Meanwhile Mean-while the king's carabineers, urged by the relentless duke of Aosta, made strong the case against them. Day by day the astounding Abbatemogglo, the traitor, revealed new secrets of the bo-clcty. bo-clcty. Twenty of the prisoners were Indicted Indict-ed for these various crimes disclosed by Abbatemaggio. One after the other oth-er they were bought up and tried In various courts. One after the other they were acquitted and sent back to jail. In only one case did the carabineers cara-bineers secure a convictioi on the evidence evi-dence furnished by the it former, and that conviction has been juashed by the court of appeals. Five are charged with tt l murder of Cuocolo and his wife. The Dthers are being tried for "criminal association" in other words, for belonging to the Camorra. The maximum penalty for this offense by Italian law, four years' Imprisonment. The accused men have already been In prison five years. Origin of the Camorra. Camorra comes from kamora contestation. con-testation. The word that gave Its name to the formidable and long establish ed cryptogamous plant of Neapolitan life Is Castlllan neologism imported into Naples through the Spanish domination. dom-ination. If we think of the Iberian peninsula, penin-sula, that country of bristly sierras and deep valleys arranged In the shape of a saw, full of precipices and, therefore, very rich In natural hiding places If we consider the peculiar physical features 'of these regions, we can easily understand how they afforded af-forded the best opportunities for the thriving of the gamurl (Spanish brigands brig-ands of the sierras), baneful forerunners forerun-ners and ancestors of the dreaded Neapolitan Camorrists. Not a pssserby nor a vehicle escaped their watchful eye and their fierce claws, so that traveling or going from one place to another on business was Impossible for any one without sharing shar-ing with the ferocious watchers of the sierras either the money he had with him or the profits of the business that had taken him on his journey. It was, therefore, necessary to come to terms with the brigands; so much so that in time a regular tariff of Camorra Camor-ra dues was agreed upon with the laborers, and shepherds, the miners, etc., and with the mail coaches for the passage or me travelers, according to their Focial Importance and standing. Whenever there was a difference of opinion upon the division of something, some-thing, the Camorrist intervened and pronounced his decision so much to the one, so much to the other; the remainder, re-mainder, the best share, of course, belongs be-longs to the judge by "right of Camorra." Ca-morra." Very different from their Andaluslan ancestors are their present degenerate descendants. The modern honorable society draws its Income chiefly from theft, from the exploitation of women, from organized raids on gambling houses, from usury extorted from rich young men who have been purposely led astray |