The poor southern Italians are the object of constant attack by the American public, of bitter contempt from the more fortunate people of the northern provinces, and of ceaseless worriment from the gentlemen legislators of the kingdom. Italia Meridionale _is_ in a miserable condition compared with the north, and the people _are_ ignorant, and the percentage of illiteracy _is_ appalling; but, nevertheless, they are strong in body, steadfast in mind, willing of spirit and at all times thrifty; so that, speaking from an immigratory standpoint, I am convinced, after a survey of the entire experiment, that they are a very good sort of raw material and their immigration should be encouraged, if the rottenness that corrupts them after they are here—as a drop of poison can turn the blood of an entire body to virus—could be cut out before they start. Poverty, ignorance and hot blood have fostered among them crime, treachery and immorality, and the larger towns have sufficed to gather these into festering clusters, leaving the countryside comparatively pure. The farmer-folk and the villagers are not criminal, dishonest or vicious; but when, in the process of emigration, nine of them are thrown with that one tenth man who is so, he leads them into ways that are not straight and paths that are turned, and in many, many instances organizes a band which holds a large coterie of families almost entirely in its power. This it can do by superior intelligence, boldness, etc., and the fact that the Italians in America are in a strange land, are “greenhorns,” as they say among themselves, lays them wide open to such invidious influences. If that one man or woman out of every ten who is vicious could be prevented from sailing, a few years would see Italian names almost entirely effaced from the criminal news and the court and prison records. If the system of social poisoning of the densely populated immigrant quarters is not destroyed, it will ultimately prove a menace to all law and order in the large cities or industrial districts populous with immigrants. Before we went to Sicily to study the peculiar conditions surrounding the Squadrito family and their neighbors, we took up the general investigation through the country south of Rome, gathering what we could by going from town to town, asking questions, asking questions, always asking questions. Much was to be learned from watching even the tiniest things in the newspapers and from observing the people themselves as they passed about the most inconsequential pursuits of their daily existence.