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 Paris.  They are known by the euphonious name of “Waps” or “Jacks.”  These are young Italian-Americans who allow themselves to be supported by one or two women, almost never of their own race.  These pimps affect a peculiar cut of hair, and dress with half-turned-up velvet collar, not unlike the old-time Camorrist, and have manners and customs of their own.  They frequent the lowest order of dance-halls, and are easily known by their picturesque styles of dancing, of which the most popular is yclept the “Nigger.”  They form one variety of the many “gangs” that infest the city, are as quick to flash a knife as the Apaches, and, as a cult by themselves, form an interesting sociological study.

The majority of the followers of the Mala Vita—­the Black Handers—­are not actually of Italian birth, but belong to the second generation.  As children they avoid school, later haunt “pool” parlors and saloons, and soon become infected with a desire for “easy money,” which makes them glad to follow the lead of some experienced capo maestra.  To them he is a sort of demi-god, and they readily become his clients in crime, taking their wages in experience or whatever part of the proceeds he doles out to them.  Usually the “boss” tells them nothing of the inner workings of his plots.  They are merely instructed to deliver a letter or to blow up a tenement.  The same name is used by the Black Hander to-day for his “assistant” or “apprentice” who actually commits a crime as that by which he was known under the Bourbons