and the office of the local padrone.  Scores of the lesser cities also have their Italian contingent, usually in the poorest and most neglected part of the town, where gaudily painted door jambs and window frames and wonderfully prosperous gardens proclaim the immigrant from sunny Italy.  Not infrequently an old warehouse, store, or church is transformed into an ungainly and evil-odored barracks, housing scores of men who do their own washing and cooking.  Those who do not dwell in the cities are at work in construction camps—­for the Italian has succeeded the Irishman as the knight of the pick and shovel.  The great bulk of these swarthy, singing, hopeful young fellows are peasants, unskilled of hand but willing of heart.  Nearly every other one is unable to read or write.  They have not come for political or religious reasons but purely as seekers for wages, driven from the peasant villages by overpopulation and the hazards of a precarious agriculture.

They have come in two distinct streams:  one from northern Italy, embracing about one-fifth of the whole; the other from southern Italy.  The two streams are quite distinct in quality.  Northern Italy is the home of the old masters in art and literature and of a new industrialism that is bringing renewed prosperity to Milan and Turin.  Here the virile native stock has been strengthened with the blood of its northern neighbors.  They are a capable, creative, conservative, reliable race.  On the other hand, the hot temper of the South has been fed by an infusion of Greek and Saracen blood.  In Sicily this strain shows at its worst.  There the vendetta flourishes; and the Camorra and its sinister analogue, the Black Hand, but too realistically remind us that thousands of these swarthy criminals have found refuge in the dark alleys of our cities.  Even in America the Sicilian carries a dirk, and the “death sign” in a court room has silenced many a witness.  The north Italians readily identify themselves with American life.  Among them are found bakers, barbers, and marble cutters, as well as wholesale fruit and olive oil merchants, artists, and musicians.  But the south Italian is a restless, roving creature, who dislikes the confinement and restraint of the mill and factory.  He is found out of doors, making roads and excavations, railways, skyscrapers, and houses.  If he has a liking for trade he trundles a pushcart filled with fruit or chocolates; or he may turn a jolly hurdy-gurdy or grind scissors.  In spite of his native sociability, the south Italian is very slow to take to American ways.  As a rule, he comes here intending to go back when he has made enough money.  He has the air of a sojourner.  He is picturesque, volatile, and incapable of effective team work.