Crime -- United States; Criminal justice, Administration of -- United States; Criminals -- United States
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, with one hole to go in and out by and another in the roof
for ventilation--in order to save $1.75 per month. All honor to him!
Garibaldi was of just such stuff, only he suffered in a better cause. In
Naples the young folks are out all day in the sun. Here they are
indoors all the year round. For the consequences of this change see
Dr. Peccorini's article in the 'Forum' for January, 1911, on the
tuberculosis that soon develops among Italians who abroad were
accustomed to live in the country but here are forced to exist in
tenements.
Now, for historic reasons, these south Italians hate and distrust all
governmental control and despise any appeal to the ordinary tribunals of
justice to assert a right or to remedy a wrong. It has been justly said
by a celebrated Italian writer that, in effect, there is some instinct
for civil war in the heart of every Italian. The insufferable tyranny
of the Bourbon dynasty made every outlaw dear to the hearts of the
oppressed people of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Even if he robbed
them, they felt that he was the lesser of two evils, and sheltered
him from the authorities. Out of this feeling grew the "Omerta," which
paralyzes the arm of justice both in Naples and Sicily. The late Marion
Crawford thus summed up the Sicilian code of honor:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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