Petrosino is a national hero in Italy, where he was known as “Il Sherlock Holmes d’Italia”—­“the Italian Sherlock Holmes.”  Many novels in which he figures as the central character have a wide circulation there.

By far the greater portion of these criminals, whether ex-convicts or novices, are the products or byproducts of the influence of the two great secret societies of southern Italy.  These societies and the unorganized criminal propensity and atmosphere which they generate, are known as the “Mala Vita.”

The Mafia, a purely Sicilian product, exerts a much more obvious influence in America than the Camorra, since the Mafia is powerful all over Sicily, while the Camorra is practically confined to the city of Naples and its environs.  The Sicilians in America vastly outnumber the Neapolitans.  Thus in New York City for every one Camorrist you will find seven or eight Mafiusi.  But they are all essentially of a piece, and the artificial distinction between them in Italy disappears entirely in America.

Historically the Mafia burst from a soil fertilized by the blood of martyred patriots, and represented the revolt of the people against all forms of the tyrannous government of the Bourbons; but the fact remains that, whatever its origin, the Mafia to-day is a criminal organization, having, like the Camorra, for its ultimate object blackmail and extortion.  Its lower ranks are recruited from the scum of Palermo, who, combining extraordinary physical courage with the lowest type of viciousness, generally live by the same means that supports the East Side “cadet” in New York City, and who end either in prison or on the dissecting-table, or gradually develop into real Mafiusi and perhaps gain some influence.

It is, in addition, an ultra-successful criminal political machine, which, under cover of a pseudoprinciple, deals in petty crime, wholesale blackmail, political jobbery, and the sale of elections, and may fairly be compared to the lowest types of politico-criminal clubs or societies in New York City.  In Palmero it is made up of “gangs” of toughs and criminals, not unlike the Camorrist gangs of Naples, but without their organization, and is kept together by personal allegiance to some leader.  Such a leader is almost always under the patronage of a “boss” in New York or a ‘padrone’ in Italy, who uses his influence to protect the members of the gang when in legal difficulties and find them jobs when out of work and in need of funds.  Thus the “boss” can rely on the gang’s assistance in elections in return for favors at other times.  Such gangs may act in harmony or be in open hostility or conflict with one another, but all are united as against the police, and exhibit much the same sort of “Omerta” in Chatham Square as in Palermo.  The difference between the Mafia and Camorra and the “gangs” of New York City lies in the fact that the latter are so much less numerous and powerful, and bribery