Camorra

“ Historically the Mafia burst from a soil fertilized by the blood of martyred patriots, and represented the revolt of the people against all forms of the tyrannous government of the Bourbons; but the fact remains that, whatever its origin, the Mafia to-day is a criminal organization, having, like the Camorra, for its ultimate object blackmail and extortion. ”

“ But of the Mala Vita there is evidence enough.
Every large city, where people exist under unwholesome conditions, has some such phenomenon. In Palermo we have the traditional Mafia—a state of mind, if you will, ineradicable and all-pervasive. Naples festers with the Camorra as with a venereal disease, its whole body politic infected with it, so that its very breath is foul and its moral eyesight astigmatized. In Paris we find the Apache, abortive offspring of prostitution and brutality, the twin brother of the Camorrista. ”

“ The servile courtiers, the high officials, but above all, the entire system. Do not forget that we are being ruled by a Camorra of bureaucrats, that have no interest at all in the real welfare of the country, but have their primary interest in the uncurtailed maintenance of their power. If the Czar wished to hear, to-day, the truth about the condition and sentiments of the country, he would never succeed, because they do not expose one another in the Camorra; for there is only one god—the career with all its chances of legitimate and illegitimate gain. ”

“ If we wish to apply these standards to an example which today attracts the attention of all Italy to this noble city, if we desire to carry our theories into the practice of contemporaneous life, if science is to respond to the call of life, let us throw a glance at that form of endemic criminality known as the Camorra in this city, which has taken root here just as stabbing affrays have in certain centers of Turin, and the Mafia in certain centers of Sicily. ”

“ It will seem to you incredible. Bruno will do nothing to help in his own defence. Talks of 'treachery' and the 'King's pardon.' Napoleon F. thinks the Camorra is at work with him, and tells how criminals in the prisons of Italy have a league of crime, with captains, corporals, and cadets. My own reading of the mystery is different. I think the Camorra in this case is the Council, and the only design is to entrap by treachery one of the 'greater delinquents not in custody.' I want to find out where Charles Minghelli is at present. ”

“ The Mafia, a purely Sicilian product, exerts a much more obvious influence in America than the Camorra, since the Mafia is powerful all over Sicily, while the Camorra is practically confined to the city of Naples and its environs. The Sicilians in America vastly outnumber the Neapolitans. Thus in New York City for every one Camorrist you will find seven or eight Mafiusi. But they are all essentially of a piece, and the artificial distinction between them in Italy disappears entirely in America. ”

“ It will be recalled in San Francisco that a swift night ride in the police launch to Black Diamond had resulted in the arrest of Bernardo Tosci, claimed by the police to be the leader of the Camorra in the west. A police theory of attempted blackmail by that organisation seemed to have been well bolstered up. The local ramifications of the Camorra were proved beyond all doubt. Mysterious persons, suspected of being Camorra agents, who had been seen talking to Ratto shortly before his disappearance, were being diligently sought. ”

“ The servants would be more afraid of the Camorra than of the police.—How about the stablemen?’
‘Oh, I can’t believe they’d join a plot against us,’ Marcia cried. ‘Angelo and Giovanni I would trust anywhere.’
‘In that case they’ve been silenced; they are where they won’t give testimony until it is too late. I dare say the fellows are even planning to ride off on the horses themselves. By morning they would be well into the mountains of the Abruzzi, where the Camorrists are at home. We’ll have to get help from Palestrina. ”

“ The general disorder of Naples was so great and the police so badly organized that merchants were glad to engage the Camorra to superintend the loading and unloading of merchandise. Being non-political, the government did not interfere with the society; indeed its members were taken into the police service and the Camorra sometimes detected crimes which baffled the authorities. After 1848 the society became political. In 1860, when the constitution was granted by Francis II., the camorristi then in gaol were liberated in great numbers. ”

“ The revenues of the Camorra, amounting to sums almost incredibly large, are each week handed over to the treasurer of the district, and distributed afterwards to the followers of the order by the Capo di Camorra, according to the rank and services of each, any concealment or malversation of funds being punished with death. The society itself not only professes to protect those who belong to it, but to extend its influence over all who obey its edicts ”

“ Sicilian and Neapolitan-Italians, members respectively of the Camorra and Mafiauso, particularly run to death-dealing criminality, prosecuted mainly individual against individual or group against group within the clan, or clan against clan, or either or both in the form of blackmail against countrymen who have made or are making their pile, some honestly, more the reverse. The law does not cope with [Pg 23] them and their ox-like blood-brothers in crime from the North and East of Italy, because the law goes about it piecemeal. ”

“ They saw that no man’s integrity ever interfered to his disadvantage, but that self-interest was the mainspring of every action; and could a people so acute to learn be slow to profit by the lesson they acquired? Out of this system of terror, for it was and is a system, grew two institutions in Southern Italy—Brigandage and the Camorra. ”

“ In a similar way these Camorrists form the court of honor of the lazzaroni. All questions of vendetta which have their origin in a sense of honor rather than personal hatred are submitted to them, and it is only just to recognize that they almost invariably do their best to bring about a reconciliation, though they themselves are notoriously ready to use their knives. In a word, whatever the ultimate purposes of the Camorra may be—they are doubtless always lawless, and not unfrequently criminal—its influence over the poorer classes is not an unmixed evil. ”

“ Personally, I don’t put much stock in the theory that a malevolent gang of cut-throats have organized an American camorra, and made the silly night clubs their headquarters. The idea is too melodramatic. It smacks too much of the gaudy journalistic imagination: it’s too Eugène Sue-ish. Crime isn’t a mass instinct except during war-time, and then it’s merely an obscene sport. Crime, d’ ye see, is a personal and individual business. One doesn’t make up a partie carrée for a murder as one does for a bridge game. . . . Markham, old dear, don’t let this romantic criminological idea lead you astray. ”

“ But the picciotto of New York is never raised to the grade of Camorrista, since the organization of the Camorra has never been transferred to this country. Instead he becomes in course of time a sort of bully or bad man on his own hook, a criminal "swell," who does no manual labor, rarely commits a crime with his own hands, and lives by his brain. Such a one was Micelli Palliozzi, arrested for the kidnapping of the Scimeca and Sabello children mentioned above—a dandy who did nothing but swagger around the Italian quarter. ”

“ The poor girl had besides to endure all the reproaches of her relatives, who, knowing nothing of what had passed between her and Padre Camorra, laughed at her fears. Would Padre Camorra fix his attention upon a country girl when there were so many others in the town? Here the good women cited names of unmarried girls, rich and beautiful, who had been more or less unfortunate. Meanwhile, if they should shoot Basilio? ”

“ It is probable that we should have this kind of thing among the Italians in America even if the Neapolitan Camorra and the Sicilian Mafia had never existed, for it is the precise kind of crime that seems to be spontaneously generated among a suspicious, ignorant, and superstitious people. The Italian is keenly alive to the dramatic, sensational, and picturesque; he loves to intrigue, and will imagine plots against him when none exists. ”

“ The abuses of the executive are too terrific to warrant such an attitude. Has not the entire police force of Naples, up to its very head, been lately proved to be in the pay of the camorra; to say nothing of its connection with what Messrs. King and Okey euphemistically call “the unseen hand at Rome”—a hand which is held out for blackmail, and not vainly, from the highest ministerial benches? Under such conditions, the populace becomes profoundly distrustful of the powers that be, and such distrust breeds bad citizens. ”

“ Believe me, we four, we are strong persons in that world—we do not fall unavenged! If we are to die here, now, and the great society of the Camorra is to wreck itself upon our death, let it not be in a mistake!—Ah, you see! ”

“ And finally the bread varies immensely from town to town, from commune to commune. The so-called just and equal distribution is all my-eye. One place has abundance of good sweet bread, another scrapes along, always stinted, on an allowance of harsh coarse stuff. And the poor suffer bitterly, really, from the bread-stinting, because they depend so on this one food. They say the inequality and the injustice of distribution comes from the Camorra—la grande Camorra—which is no more nowadays than a profiteering combine, which the poor hate. ”

“ Possibly the Sicilian charm contains among its many ingredients a trace of this love of being dominated which, in England, we associate more particularly with women, spaniels and walnut trees; and if it were not so, history might contain less about the misgovernment of the island by foreigners.
The mafia is not like the Neapolitan Camorra, it is not an organised society such as one reads about in books for boys, nor is it a recognised trade union with a president, secretary, officers and so on. ”

“ The whole house is empty.’
‘It’s the Camorra!’ he exclaimed softly.
‘The Camorra?’ Marcia paled a trifle at the name.
‘Ah—it’s plain enough. We should have suspected it before. Pietro is a member and has been acting as a spy from the inside. It appears to be a very prettily worked out plot. They have waited until they think there’s money in the house; your uncle has just sold a big consignment of wheat. They have probably dismissed the servants with their usual formula: “Be silent, and you live; speak, and you die.” ”

“ He paused, and then, with mingled discretion and pride of knowledge, murmured the explanatory word "Camorra" and shut down the lid. "A very powerful Camorra," he breathed out. "The professors themselves respect it greatly . . . una lira e cinquanti centesimi, Signor Conde."
Our friend paid with the gold piece. While Pasquale was making up the change, he observed that the young man, of whom he had heard so much in a few words, was watching the transaction covertly. After the old vagabond had withdrawn with a bow, the Count settled with the waiter and sat still. ”

“ Such a commerce as this was no doubt necessary and proper in the Middle Ages and would no doubt be necessary and proper in a state of anarchy, but when individuals are allowed to employ private police, armies, thugs, and assassins in a country which possesses a regularly established State, courts, laws, military forces, and police the traffic constitutes a menace as alarming as the Black Hand, the Camorra, or the Mafia. ”

“ There is in the town where Juli lives a friar, Father Camorra, of great power in the Government. An old woman urges Juli to go to the convento6 and beg the intercession of Father Camorra. A word from him will be enough to save Basilio’s life. Juli knows well enough what is the real nature of the sacrifice demanded of her; so many a Filipino girl has walked or been dragged along that road to destruction. The reports about the students grow worse. At last it appears that Basilio has been condemned to death and in twenty-four hours will stand before the firing-squad. ”

“ Ben-Zayb was talking and declaiming, while Padre Camorra, as usual, was constantly interrupting him. The friar-journalist, in spite of his respect for the cowled gentry, was always at loggerheads with Padre Camorra, whom he regarded as a silly half-friar, thus giving himself the appearance of being independent and refuting the accusations of those who called him Fray Ibañez. Padre Camorra liked his adversary, as the latter was the only person who would take seriously what he styled his arguments. ”

“ Lind resumed. "I know what they intend. They intend to make it clear to all Europe that this is not a Camorra act of vengeance. The Starving Cardinal has thousands of enemies; the people curse and groan at him; if he were stabbed by an Italian, 'Oh, another of those Camorristi wretches!' would be the cry. The agent must come from [Pg 258] England, and, if he is taken red-handed, then let him say if he likes that he is connected with an association which knows how to reach evil-doers who are beyond the ordinary reach of the law ”

“ And it must be admitted that the twentieth century, with its vast philanthropies, its soft-heartedness, verging so often even to sentimentality, and its insistence on the ideal of service, belongs to a different world from the hard life of the Greek and Latin city states, which seem, sometimes, in their unthinkable indifference to human pain and the rights of the weaker, to be prototypes of nothing modern except the Camorra and the Mafia. ”