SECRET SOCIETIES

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11435, 3 February 1923, Page 13

SECRET SOCIETIES

TERRIBLE METHODS. OUTRAGES IN AMERICA. “Thus perish all traitors!’’ These fatal avoids, scribbled on a paper package, gave .the Neav York police a clue to the murder of Tony Ylirisbili. He had been found stabbed with over 20 wounds in a lonely field on the outskirts of the city, in circumstances that left’ little doubt that this unfortunate man was the victim, of the revenge of a secret society. And terrible were the oontents of the package found by the dead man, for it contained his tongue, torn out as an act of vengeance for betrayal whilst the victim was still alive. THE CAMORRA. Tony Mirisbili, it was discovered later, had been a member of a branch of the Camorra, the dreaded “Black Hand” gang, which had been terrorising the foreign traders of the poorer quarters of New York for many years. Seven years ago, Mirisbili had been instrumental, "by giving information to the police, in sending certain of his accomplices to the penitentiary for blackmail, and this was their revenge. It is not generally known that tbe Camorra, inaugurated in Naples during the Middle Ages, was started with the best of intentions; its original purposes were the punishment of criminals laxly dealt with by the law and the succour of poor persons. THE MAFIA. Closely allied to the Camorra is the Mana ot Italy, likewise having started with most laudable intentions. The maria, too, has perpetrated its worst crimes in America, the city of New Orleans being once the scene of a terrible outrage. The Mafia and another gang known as the Stoppagihera had contracted a feud, and Between them were making life miserable to the honest citizens of New Orleans. At length Mr David Henessy, the Chief of Police, made strenuous efforts to put an end to their activities. So ha’rdly did he press them that they determined upon his death, and, an ambush having been set, he was 1 shot dead in the streets by a number of men wring shot-guns. But the assassins did not get away 6cot free. Mr Henessy, before he died, succeeded in killing tovo with his revolver, and the police, attracted by the sound of firing, came up and arrested all the remaining assassins after a terrible struggle. But next day, an even more terrible outrage took place. The populace, of New Orleans, their minds inflamed at the murder of Mr Henessy, stormed the gaol where the members of the Mafia were held, dragged them forth and battered them to pieces in the streets. • KU KLUX ELAN. 1 Of another great secret society in America we are hearing a good deal at the present moment —the Ku Klux Klan. This organisation came into being at the close of the Civil War for the protection of the white people against the rising power of the negroes. Members disguised themselves in white cloaks and masks, and attempted a rough kind of justice by setting up oourts of the “Fiery Cross,” before .which their prisoners were allowed to give evidence on their own behalf. BRANDING A VICTIM. “ Only a few weeks ago the Ku Klux Klan seized an hotel porter in a town in Alabama and tried him for an offence against a white woman. He was found guilty, and offered the alternative punishments of shooting or flogging and branding. He chose the latter, and after having received the first part of the sentence was branded on the forehead with the letter “K” to be a warning "to other wrongdoers of the justice and power of the Klan. NIHILISM. Russia has always been a country in which secret societies flourished, and of all the subterranean movements' of that country, the Nihilists, founded by a teacher named Sergei Nechaveff, have been the most powerful. There is no doubt that their dissemination ot propaganda for a period of many years paved the way for the recent revolution. One of the most notorious of the Nihilists was the assassination of Czar Alexander 11., on March 13th, 1881, whilst he was driving in the streets in an open carriage. It is remarkable to note that among the first men to rush to the, assistance of the dying monarch was the very mail who had thrown the fatal bomb, THUGS OF INDIA.

Possibly The most terrible of all these sinister brotherhoods is that of the Thugs of India, with whose activities the Government has been at times very seriously troubled. The Thugs were originally known as “Phansigars,” or “Men of the Noose,” and, as the name implies, did away with their victims by strangling them. They worship a goddess called Kali, believing that she detests human life, and that by murdering as many people as possible they are earning themselves rewards at her bands in the world to come.

Travellers have always been , the special prey of the Thugs, hut modern methods of locomotion are curtailing their activities in this direction. They do not allow tfce killing of people who squint, the lame or deform<fd, women travelling without eScorfc, and, for some reason as yet undiscovered, Wasii-er-women. The Thug invariably strangles; bloodshed is abhorrent to him. and when he is caught he will always ask to he hanged in lien of anv other form of death. •

In the prison at Lahore were once pertain Thugs who ’confessed with pride to a vast number of murders. One stated that he had strangled 999 victims and then quit, for, he said, Thugs consider round numbers to be rather vulgar. A notorious Thug, one Soha Singh, confessed to 36 crimes, and in the year 1825 there was hanged at Lucknow one who was legally convicted of no fewer than 600 stranglings. CHINESE SOCIETY.

The tortuous mind of the celestial has a predilection for mystery, and though the Chinaman is on the whole a peace-loving individual, when it comes to secret societies of crime he excels in violence and cruelty. A few years ago, with the" object ol stirring up strife against foreigners, there was started an organisation of the underworld, known as the Ko la® Hui. Their first act was to placard the walls of their towns with the words: “The devil doctriners must die I” referring to tbo missionaries who were veiy active at the time. Later they seized one or two priests and put them to death with terrible tortures.