In return for the services of the _Camorra bassa_ in electing its deputies to office, the government saw to it that the criminal activities of the society were not interfered with. Prefects who sought to do their duty found themselves removed from office or transferred to other communes, and the blight of the Camorra fell upon Parliament, where it controlled a number of deputies from the provinces of “Capitanata”; all governmental interference with the Camorra was blocked, and Italian politics weltered in corruption. Upon the assassination of King Humbert, in 1900, the situation in Naples was as bad as that of New York City in the days of the Tweed Ring. The ignorant Neapolitans sympathized with the Camorrists as against the police, and voted as they were directed. Almost all the lower classes were affiliated in some indirect way with the society, much as they are in New York City with Tammany to-day. The Ring absolutely controlled all but three of the newspapers published in the city. The lowest depths had been reached in every department of municipal and provincial administration, and even the hospitals and orphan asylums had been plundered to such an extent that there was nothing left for the thieves to get away with. At this crisis the Socialist newspaper, _La Propaganda_, courageously sprang to the attack of the communal administration, in the persons of the Syndic Summonte and the Deputy Casale, who, smarting under the lash of its excoriation, brought an action of libel against its editor. Heretofore similar attacks had come to nothing, but the facts were so notorious that Summonte evaded service and abandoned his associate, and Casale, facing the necessity of explaining how he could support a luxurious establishment on no salary, endeavored to withdraw the action. The Public Minister himself announced that no witnesses need be summoned for the defense, and publicly expressed his indignation that a governmental officer, Commendatore F. S. Garguilo, Sustituto Procuratore Generale of the Court of Cassation in Naples, should have accepted a retainer for Casale. The tribunal handed down a decision finding that the facts asseverated by _La Propaganda_ were fully proved and, referring to the influence of Casale, said: “The immorality thence emanating is such as to nauseate every honest conscience, and to affirm this in a verdict is the commencement of regeneration.”