Crime -- United States; Criminal justice, Administration of -- United States; Criminals -- United States
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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