e of God," or even
with sorceries. The number of Italians who can be thus terrorized is
astonishing. Of course, the mere possibility of such things argues a
state of mediaevalism. But mere mediaevalism would be comparatively
unimportant did it not supply the principal element favorable to the
growth of the Mala Vita, apprehended with so much dread by many of the
citizens of the United States.

Now, what are the phases of the Mala Vita--the Camorra, the Black Hand,
the Mafia--which are to-day observable in the United States and which
may reasonably be anticipated in the future?

In the first place, it may be safely said that of the Camorra in its
historic sense--the Camorra of the ritual, of the "Capo in Testa" and
"Capo in Trino," highly organized with a self-perpetuating body of
officers acting under a supreme head--there is no trace. Indeed, as has
already been explained, this phase of the Camorra, save in the prisons,
is practically over, even in Naples. 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. In New
York there are the "gangs," composed of pimps, thugs, cheap thieves, and
hangers-on of criminals, which rise and wane in power according to the
honesty and efficiency of the police, and who, from time to time, hold
much the same relations to police captains and inspectors as the various
gangs of the Neapolitan Camorra do to commissaries and delegati of the
"Public Safety." Corresponding to these, we have the "Black Hand" gangs
among the Italian population of our largest cities. Sometimes the two
coalesce, so that in the second generation we occasionally find an
Italian, like Paul Kelly, leading a gang composed of other Italians,
Irish-Americans, and "tough guys" of all nationalities. But the genuine
Black Hander (the real Camorrist or "Mafiuoso") works alone or with two
or three of his fellow-countrymen.

Curiously enough, there is a society of criminal young men in New York
City who are almost the exact counterpart of the Apaches of Pa