[Illustration: Giacomo Marini, the Municipal Secretary—Nicola Squadrito at Work (_Carmelo Merlino at the right_)] And since the mass of these can enter only by immigration; And since the immigrant must have a passport from the chief of his local police district; And since every criminal’s record is kept in the district in which he was born, and he must go there to get the birth-certificate on which he gets his passport,— Then these thousands of passports issued annually to criminals are given by chiefs of police who know the records of the men who are receiving them, and are thus deliberately ridding their districts of them to save themselves trouble and increase their reputation for efficiency. That those secret instructions which are issued from Rome to the chief of each district advise any such procedure I do not believe. They do advise, so I have been reliably informed, that passports be not issued to prostitutes easy of detection, or to persons over forty-five not accompanied by sons, inasmuch as both classes are very nearly sure to be turned back and to become a matter of expense to the government. That is the bugaboo of Italian statesmen,—expense. In my own case I knew I would have no difficulty concerning my passport until I came to the gate in the police-office in Naples; then I must have a passport either American or Italian. Any chance of getting an Italian one had been quickly shattered; and yet, if I went on the ship’s manifest as an American I would not be entering the United States in the desired rôle. The solution of the difficulty was not reached till we were in Naples. When Antonio and the others had their passports, then the tickets were issued to them by the agents, and not before, the lot being returned to Gualtieri by post. Now there was no turning back. Camela began to waver, and hourly there was some new dread to suffuse her eyes with tears. One day Antonio Nastasia’s father went to Messina, taking some of the money which he had labored hard as a tinsmith and sheet-iron worker to accumulate, and spent nearly all of it in buying clothes for little Antonio to wear. Curro spent a month’s wages on a new suit. Giunta’s relatives prepared him a considerable wardrobe, and altogether nearly half as much as was needed to pay the passage of the entire party was spent in buying Italian clothes to wear to America. The senselessness of this proceeding is plain when it is said that few of these new clothes were worn after the first day or two in the States.