THE CAMORRA.

Evening Star, Issue 14572, 22 May 1911, Page 3

THE CAMORRA.

Aoathr of the Authorities.—

No. 11, INNER HISTORY~OF THE WORLD S GREATEST SECRET SOCIETY. [By the ‘Daily Chronicle’s’ Special Correspondent.] (Continued from Saturday’:; issue.) In the ranks of the Camorra, as in the most mondaine of circles, social status plays its part and makes its influence felt. One finds in it two clearly-defined classes of members—the Plebeians and the Patricians—working in harmony, and not in opposition, ns in ancient Hume. There are sections o? the Camorra which none except those of noble birth or very good family are permitted to join. They are the Ar«ene Lupins of Naples. This criminal Smart Sot has its own special sphere of action. It frequents the salons and drawing rooms of the fashionable world, wears evening dress, and dines at good restaurants. Ihcse high-cute criminals consist very often of decayed and spendthrift noblemen and viveurs of prominent families, who are driven to a life of wrongdoing by chronic impccrriosily. Their specialty is the extorting of taxes from high-class gambling-houses, or from other establishments bearing sinister reputations. The police, curiously enough, view these proceedings with a tolerant—one might say a blind—eye, so that there is little fear of tho members of the Camorra Elegante being called to account for their illegal practices, to call them by no harsher name.

Tit ere is certainly good ground for complaint regarding the apathy of tho authorities in tha hunting down of tho members of a body which specialia s in every branch of villainy. In Naples, when a Cammonist crime is such os to excite more than the .usual degree of public horror and reprobation. the official world bestirs itself, and

.the Carabinieri are summoned—tor it is ! .useless appealing to the civic police. Scor s of arret,s are made; the local newspapi 4

are full of sensational descriptions of tlij •deeds of the accused men. For weeks, perhaps for months, examining magistrates .are kept busy interrogating the prisoners. Then, when public in’erest has evaporated somewhat, the whole affair is mysteriously hushed up, and the case against the ar-rer-ted men ends abruptly. The prisoners will he released, returning to freedom ‘‘without a stain on their eh‘>ractors.” They will find themselves theTibjects of commiseration and public sympathy by reason of their “unjustified arrest,” and in course of time their fcllowMeapolitan citizens nmy elect them to the Provincial Council, or even to Parliament itself. All this may help to explain why it is that the Camorra Inis its agents .everywhere ; why it is able to penetrate into the prisons, into the dossiers of the secret police, and into the most carefullylocked despatch boxes of Ministers and of officials o f every grade. There is scarcely any form of unlawful enterpiiee from which finan.cial gain can he extracted that escapes the" Camorra. The leaders display a positive genius in the collecting of taxes to fill the .society’s exchequer. Travellers arriving in Maples who hire a cab to go to their hotel are often surprised to sec an individual mount the tox be'ide the driver. This is the agent of the Camorra, who is waiting to collect a commission from the cabdiiver at the end of the journey. Let ihe visitor hire a boat to board the small steamer that is to convey him to Capri. If he has eyes for such things, he will see the boatman hand a percentage of his fare to a shabbily-dressed individual lounging on the quay—the taxgatherer of the Camorra. Jn the midst of its manifold activities, the Camorra has found lime to organise and control the professional beggars of Maples, who have become such a peat iu the city. They protect the halt, the lame, and the blind who live upon the charity of tourists. H is Ihe Camorra which apportions to .here beggars certain reserved areas and profitable “pitches" on the steps of churches and at the doors of the public buildings - The Association makes it its business to see that no unauthorised beggar usurps the sites allotted to its own proteges. It also trains cripples in the best way of exhibiting their disgusting sores or hideous deformities. —lnitiation Ceremonies.— It may be as well here to say some tiling cf the initiation of candidates. It is still 1 marked by solemn rites and ceremonies, | partly mystical, partly supeistitious in character. Formerly the solemn oath of adhesion w;cs administered at a mil meeting of the executive* chiefs. It was customary for the head to be uncovered and the breast am! arms to be bared ; the ecu’. irony of cutting open the arm of Hie neophyte and the painting over of a sacred ima.",* with the Mocd thus drawn was also common, us was the practice of the candidate's swearing before a religious emblem to prove himself worthy of admission by the iicri>ctrdtlny cf conn' lenihlc deed of blood. A residence of some duration in Southern Italy, and a dose investigation of the methods of the Camorra, has con- | \inced me that this terrible and blnodv 1 ritual bas fallen into desuetude. Ihe ceremony of initiation now concludes with the administering of

—The Oath <ii Fidelity ■ to the society. followed by the fraternal kiss given by the neophyte to every one of the brethren prtst nt on tht! occasion of his xecejition. With the (hiuiorritiL this kiss of fellowship is held to ho as binding as the oath itself. The custom of tattooing, despite the protestations of the neo-Camor-risls, a group of the society which wishes to do away with such barbarities, stiil prevails amongst the newly-initiated. These latter wished its abolition to he nude compulsory, for it is felt to be a weapon which the Camorra has unwittingly forged against itself. The Carabinieri, in the hunting down of suspects, invariably look for this marca di fabbrica, and, if the prisoner bo a genuine Camorrist. they generally find it. Of fourteen prisoners whom 1 recently saw in a Naples p' son as the result of a midnight raid by ; ae indefatigable Carabinieri, four bore no “trade mark,” two> had the tattooed device of a dagger piercing a heart, whi 1 • eight had a large spider tattooed on the breast. The spider may be said to symbolise the activity of the Camorra, which works noiselesslv in the preparing of the wob into which the human fly may be enticed and devoured at leisure. —Tiie Inexorable Death Penalty.— According to the “ unreformedpenal code of the organisation, treason in the case oi a higher grade official, even where guilt cannot be (learly established by irrefutable proof, is punishable by dealh. Vnauthoiised dealings with the police. misconduct with the wife of the chief or the wife of another member, the killing of a member or nanmember wilhouX due permission from the Executive, extortion or robbery for individual gain, insubordination to superiors, and cowardice in the execution of duty arc all visited by the same supremo chastisement. When the death peiailty is pronounced everv member present has the right to individually knife the culprit. 'There are never lacking aspirants to this bloody office, especially amongst neophytes, for the self-nominated executioner is sure of pecinii.-i.ry recompense and promotion. —Razor-slashing.—

Offences, such as that of renderin'; tardy i obedience, drunkenness, or that of showing compassiou for victims; arc punished either by suspension from profit-sharing or by the inflicting of some humiliating correction. I such as being slapped in the face or op.it ! upon. Next to death itself, the, most dreaded chastisement is that of facial disfigurement hy razor-slashing. One of the imprisoned Camonists note on trial at Vi- | terho, for supposed complicity in the Cuocolo murders, bears this tell-tale cicatrice, this sign-manual of the Camorra’s displeasure, writ dearly on the right side of ' his face. In the Vicaria and Chiaia, slum quarters of Naples, and at the bi-weekly rag fair near the Porta Nolana, I have met men and women hearing this disfiguring scar. On a woman’s face it is sometimes intended as a mark of unfaithfulness to . some Neapolitan husband or lover. Then, | again, a Camorrist has been known to j adopt this savage method of indelibly | branding the woman he loves best. Amongst the women of the lower classes thia delicate mark of attention on ,

tho part of their masters is very much appreciated. As distinct from tho traitor’s mark of the Camorra, this slash upon a woman’s face is usually made horizontally from Kir to mouth, and with a very sharp razor, so that the permanent disfigurement is slight. Tho wound inflicted generally heals up speedily, leaving but a slight bluish-colored wale, calling to mind the mark of honorable combat one sees frequently on the faces of members of a German university, Schlagen Korper. —What are tho Government Doing?— I may bo asked what the Government of the country are doing towards the rooting out of this organised and disciplined army of criminals. 1 answer—everything and yet nothing. It threatens, becomes angry, passes repressive edicts which arc put in force, but tho threatened blow is always averted by some mysterious and very often highly-placed protector. Tho Camorra rests on as solid a basis to-day as it has at any period since its renaissance. But I will let the Government of Italy speak for itself. In 1909 the Marquis cli Sant’ Onofrio, then Under-Secre-tary of State for Homo -Affairs, was interrogated in Parliament on the question of the Camorra by Signor (Jolosimo, a member of the Chamber of Deputies. The latter had called attention to the disgraceful state of social degeneration prevailing at Naples, and demanded more adequate protection for life and property there. The Under-Secretary, in reply, pointed out that Naples had already laid assigned to it one-seventh of the entire police, force of the kingdom. He declared that tiie Government had experienced great difficulty in grappling with the Neapolitan social problem, inasmuch as within its confines there were a vast number of people without house or home, or even sleeping shelter, and. moreover, the worst dregs of society had settled down beneath its incomparable sky. Forty years of liberal administration, he said, had failed to suppress the formidable Cumorra or the other criminal associations which constituted so grave an obstacle to the maintenance of public order. The lovcnirnent. he went on to say. were do>g their best to ensure public safety by the reorganising of the police service, the creating of additional night patrols, and tho offering of rewards for the arrests of evildoers. !

Folkes, saying that as ho had occupied the house on tho royal estate for so many years it would be a great pleasure to His Majesty to give him tho house rent free for tho rest of his life. Tha King ended his letter by expressing the hope that this little relief to his income would enable him to afford and enjoy a cigar as long as ho lived.