The real reason for the backward condition of Sicily is, in my opinion, not so much the intermixture of races as the neglect and oppression of the masses of the people. In 1861, when Sicily became a part of the Italian Confederation, 90 per cent. of the population were wholly unable to read or write. This means that at this time the people of Sicily were not much better off, as far as education is concerned, than the Negro slaves at the time of emancipation. It has been estimated that between 5 and 10 per cent. of the slaves could read and write. One of the first things the Italian Government attempted to do, after annexation, was to reorganize the school system of Sicily. But even under the new Government, and with a compulsory education law on the statute books, progress has been slow. In 1881, twenty years later, more than 84 per cent. of the population could neither read nor write, and as late as 1901, for every hundred inhabitants of school age, more than seventy were illiterate. In practically the same period--that is, from 1866 to 1900--the Negro population in the United States reduced its illiteracy to 44.5 per cent. of the population of school age, and for every one hundred Negroes in the Southern States, fifty-two could read and write. Sicily has three universities, one in each of its three largest cities, Palermo, Catania, and Messina, but they are for the few, and have in no way connected themselves with the practical interests and the daily life of the people. One result of the ignorance of the people is that in Sicily, where the educational qualifications exclude more persons than elsewhere from the suffrage, not more than 3.62 persons in every hundred of the population vote. This is according to statistics, which go back, however, to 1895. As near as I can make out, the Mafia seems to have grown up, in the first place, like the White Caps, the Night Riders, and the lynchers in our own country, as a means of private vengeance. The people, perhaps because they despised and hated the Government, preferred to settle their scores in the old barbaric fashion of private warfare. The consequence was that the small towns were divided by tribal and family feuds. Under such circumstances professional outlaws became of service either for the purposes of attack or defence. From conditions something like this what is known as the Mafia sprang. It is said that it was the rich fruit gardens of the "Shell of Gold" outside of Palermo which gave the Mafia its first secure foothold and eventually made that city the centre of its activity. In that region field guards were necessary, in addition to the high walls, to keep thieves out of the plantations where the golden fruit ripened almost all the year round. In the course of time these field guards became associated in a sort of clan or guild. In these guilds the most enterprising of the guards eventually became the leaders, and ruled those under them like the tribal chiefs.