Armed with credentials from the New York City government and from the national government as well, Lieutenant Petrosino sailed for Europe in February, 1909. Though he travelled under an assumed name he was recognised in various cities by Italians who had spent some time in the United States, and probably knowledge of his presence was widespread among the criminal classes. Though several times warned of danger, he did not flinch, but went quietly on collecting material and striving to interest the authorities in his mission. While in Palermo, Sicily, on the night of March 12, 1909, he was twice shot in the Piazza Marina, just as he was mailing a letter to his wife, and died almost instantly. Though the police were ordered to be especially active months of investigation apparently have produced no results. Speculation has connected the tragedy with the names of many well-known Italian criminals. Guiseppe Di Primo, whom Petrosino suspected of complicity in the celebrated “barrel murder” in 1903, and who was later deported through his efforts, is said to have threatened to take his life if opportunity offered. Errico Alfano, better known as Erricone, a Camorrist of Naples, who was deported and arrested in his native city, through information given by Petrosino, is also suspected. For that matter, any one of a hundred who had felt his heavy hand may have done, or, at least, have incited the crime. Petrosino’s work has been continued chiefly by men with whom he worked and whom he had trained. The “Black Hand” outrages have persisted and it becomes increasingly evident that they can be suppressed only by exercising closer scrutiny of the records of Italian immigrants, and perhaps also by adopting a system of espionage, heretofore entirely foreign to American ideas of the limits of police activity. FOOTNOTES: [1] The _pilleus_ was a close fitting felt cap worn by freed men as a mark of their enfranchisement. [2] “_Mattone_” signifies literally “an arrant fool.” [3] The Italian Patarini were married priests and their followers, who are sometimes confounded with the Waldenses, with whom they sympathised, at least in the conviction that compulsory celibacy was unlawful. [4] As a matter of fact the Archbishop of Memphis did leave the prison under a new régime. * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: but in fine=> but in tine {pg 780} Nemoque motalium mihi adhuc Velum delraxit=> Nemoque mortalium mihi adhuc Velum detraxit {pg 202} End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History and Romance of Crime; Italian Prisons, by Arthur Griffiths