"I WILL DIE!"

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 79, 3 April 1911, Page 6

"I WILL DIE!"

CAMORRISTB DRAMATIC STATEMENT.

HOME, March 28. Yesterday's proceedings in the trial of the Camorrists at Viterbo were of a dramatic nature. Abbatemaggio. the informer, posing as a penitent, said, as he raised his hand above his head: "I am prepared to yield my life as a sacrifice for my crimes." His cleverly-told tale has made a deep impression, but the counsel for the defence have tried to discount its value by describing the witness as an incorrigible. They gay that during his childhood he was in the habit of often striking his own mother, an offence -which should awaken contempt and suspicion in every decent man. The Camorrists under arrest listened to Abbateihaggio's story with fine displays of indignation, and declare that when •they are allowed to speak they will refute his infamous lies. Of the female prisoners among the 40 members of the Camorra now undergoing their trial, Maria Stenardo is the only one who retains evidence of her earlier beauty. The woman's home in Naples used to be the resort of men in high places, equally with desperadoes, and her powerful influence in official circles in the city was a matter of notoriety. Stenardo denied that she had bribed any witnesses to clear herself and the other prisoners. The Carabineers, however, had offered her 50/ for each witness whom she could induce to sign, a certain statement they had prepared. She emphatically asserted that the charge that Morra and his companions went to her house to wash their bloodstained hands after the commission of the crime, was a piece of manufactured evidence. According to the police, Ferdinand Dematteo, formerly an athlete, but now a man of advanced years, lured Signor Cuocolo to a lonely spot, where everything had been prepared for.his murder. Dematteo, however, denied having participated in the actual commission of the crime. He said that year's ago Morra and lie thieved, together, and continued to do so until they quarrelled. Dematteo declared that he would never "work" with him again. "I hate him!" fiercely exclaimed the wicked old man.