It might be supposed that the baleful tyranny of the Camorra, which was an undoubted fact, based upon undeniable evidence, had now disappeared from the Italian prisons. Yet, according to the best authority, the society still flourishes in the south and especially in the convict colonies established in the various islands of the kingdom. A writer in the “Archivo di Psichiatria,” Signor Pucci, states positively from his personal knowledge that the Camorra is still ferociously active. It is absolute master in every colony. Although by no means numerically strong, by its admirable and unscrupulous organisation it still rules despotically, despises laws and regulations and sets the authority of all prison officials at defiance. Brutal violence may not be often practised as of old, but the society still extorts blackmail from the rest of the colonists, adopting nefarious methods of obtaining money. One is by the tax on gambling--the Italian, bond or free, is always eager to gamble; another is by the most extortionate usury at twenty or thirty per cent.; a third is by forcibly impounding the earnings of those who work. When new arrivals appear in the colony, if they have money or decent clothes they are made drunk and then robbed. The first sight, says Signor Pucci, that strikes the visitor is that of a number of lazy, truculent ruffians lounging idly in the sun or strolling and loafing about the yards and passages. These are the Camorrists; they are too lazy to lift a finger to shut a door; but on Sundays they appear in smart clothes, wearing watches and chains, the proceeds of their extortion. As these _coatti_ “ex-convict colonists,” are mostly criminal men, it is easy to understand how soon this corrupting association drags them down. The authorities are powerless to protect them or to control the infamous practices of the Camorra. This is alleged to be the cardinal defect of the colonies and those who know declare that wherever Italians of the dangerous class congregate together in their freedom, the Camorra will always exercise its baneful control. The influence of this criminal society has extended to all classes, and especially has it made itself felt in the municipal life of Naples, which might well be termed rotten to the core. No determined effort to strike at this plague spot and eradicate this crying evil met with any success before the royal order for inquiry into the condition of municipal government was issued in 1900, when the most astonishing facts were brought to light. The origin of the Mafia, which flourishes chiefly in Sicily is lost. Probably it arose centuries ago as a means of self-protection among the residents of that unhappy island which has been the pawn of so many rulers. Though little is definitely known of it, apparently the society is as powerful in the twentieth century as in the eighteenth or the nineteenth.