nd cut it open here in the
presence of the jury."

The writer had no choice but to accede to this request, and the bolster
was hunted down and brought into court. With some anxiety both sides
watched while the lining was slit with a penknife. A few feathers
fluttered to the floor as the fingers of the witness felt inside
and came in contact with the poison. The assistant was convicted of
attempted murder on the convict's testimony, and sentenced to Sing Sing
for twenty-five years. That was the end of the second lesson.

About a month afterward the defendant's counsel made a motion for a new
trial on the ground that the convict now admitted his testimony to have
been wholly false, and produced an affidavit from the assassin to that
effect. Naturally so startling an allegation demanded investigation.
Yes, insisted the "bravo," it was all made up, a "camorra"--not a word
of truth in it, and he had invented the whole thing in order to get a
vacation from State prison and a free ride to New York. However, the
court denied the motion. The writer procured a new indictment against
the assassin--this time for perjury--and he was sentenced to another
additional term in prison. What induced this sudden and extraordinary
change of mind on his part can only be surmised.

These two cases are extreme examples of the mediaevalism that to a
considerable degree prevails in New York City, probably in Chicago and
Boston, and wherever there is an excessive south Italian population.

The conditions under which a large number of Italians live in this
country are favorable not only to the continuance of ignorance, but to
the development of disease and crime. Naples is bad enough, no doubt.
The people there are poverty-stricken and homeless. But in New York City
they are worse than homeless. It is better far to sleep under the stars
than in a stuffy room with ten or twelve other persons. Let the reader
climb the stairs of some of the tenements in Elizabeth Street, or go
through those in Union Street, Brooklyn, and he will get firsthand
evidence. This is generally true of the lower class of Italians
throughout the United States, whether in the city or country. They live
under worse conditions than at home. You may go through the railroad
camps and see twenty men sleeping together in a one-room built of
lath, tar-paper, and clay. The writer knows of one Italian laborer in
Massachusetts who slept in a floorless mud hovel about six feet
square,