It is out of these teeming quarters, packed with a population as dense and fetid as that of Seven Dials, that the Camorra, the great secret society of Naples, drew the strength and vigour which enables it still to defy the law. There would be no exaggeration in saying that hardly a full generation has passed by since in all the lower quarters of the city the Camorra ruled with an audacity so high that there was neither man nor woman, boy nor girl, who did not know he must obey it rather than the law. The law was blind and deaf. The Camorra had eyes and ears in every vicolo and every cellar. It discovered all things; it struck heavily and secretly at those who tried to thwart it. A fruitseller who resisted payment of dues to the Camorrist would find his custom disappear. Accident upon accident would happen to his goods. Ere long he would be a ruined man. The Camorra might accept his submission, if proffered humbly and accompanied by a fine; but any active resistance, any communication with the police, would be repaid by a knife-thrust in the stomach some dark night. Fishermen, street hawkers, vetturini, guides--all were under the thrall of the ruthless organisation, all paid tribute in return for its protection, and executed its orders without remorse. So far as is known to outsiders, the aims of the Camorra--which still exists, and wields considerable power yet--were not mainly political, though it was certainly at one time a powerful engine in the hands of those who desired the return of the Bourbons. That desire, once passionate in Naples, has almost died away. Francis the Second is dead, and there is none who can breathe life into the dry bones of his party. If the devotion to the old Royal House exists, it is kept alive by the exertions of the priests, who would make a hero of Apollyon if he came down on earth and showed a disposition to unseat the present king. The lower orders are still as clerical as in the days of Mas'aniello. Turbulent and fierce as are their passions, they are capable of high devotion; and a spiritual ruler who exerted the whole influence of the Church might turn them into a great people. But here too, as at every turn in Italy, the task of government is checked and hampered by the hostility of Church and Crown. No foreigner can appreciate the chances of this struggle, or even apportion fairly blame between the combatants. It is enough for those of us who love Italy to sit and watch the unrolling of the future, lamenting that from the outset of her career as a united nation she has been wrestling with a Church whose traditions lie in the humbling of emperors and kings. CHAPTER VII CHIEFLY ABOUT CHURCHES WITH SOME SAINTS, BUT MORE SINNERS