Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-05-19
DREADED MAFIA SOCIETY.
Nobody In Italy Knows Anything
 About Operations of the Gang.

informant, "as ill the United States. You might live in Palermo or Messina with all your neighbors members of the Maffa, and yet never hear the word ! mentioned. 1t is something that no one cares to talk about. We only know that money is extorted right and left, because it is certain death to re, fuse, and unless these murderers are caught red-handed, they are rarely con- vfcted A Mafiosa never 'squeals,' as you call 1t in this country No more will the relatives of a Mafa victim help the police. If they know the l murderer, however, they will bide their time and bay him in his own coin.
 ''The essential idea is opposition to | governmental authority, a condition Of the spirit. The tMafia itself has no recognized head, no one to give orders or pass Judgment. The society in- cludes one or two good men; the great majority are vile. They have an oath, l I believe, and certain forms of proce- dure, for instance, in the choosing of one who is to commit a murder. But for entire secrecy they rely upon each mans hatred for established law and the fear of vengeance.''
 .s1n conn ection with this it is interest ing to know that there IS mo such word as Mafia in the Italian or other lan- guage. From two or three sources the writer learned that, according to the Sicilian legend, Maf1a Is really a cryptogram, each, letter representing one word of "a five-word oath. The first is mordo, meaning death, and the whole is an oath which obIigates the Mafiosa to put to death by dagger, pistol or fre.'' # Do not. put this aside as being too melodramatic for our prosaic twenti- eth century. The whole existence of this society, lasting now for one cen- tufy, is so fraught with picturesque tragedy. that compared with it's an- nals, the most extravagant fiction seems dua. Every enterprise under taken by the Maf1a Is out of the or dinaIy, whether Kidnapping, murder fblackmail or counterfeitfng. Every man in the order is prepared to fulfil his oath, too, but he demands an even chance.
 From a confession alleged to have been made last year by a Mafia prison CT, charged with the killing of Catania in Brooklyn. these murderers are de- scfibed as deciding who shall put a man to deatlHfb by the tossing of cards The elect sit about a table the cards are shufied, and one starts to deal Ace of diamonds is the fatal card and the man to whom it is dealt is given certain time within which to accom- plfsh his mission.
 By the account of a secret service man who stumbled into a Mafia crowd while looking for anarchists, the ia Vorite method is what they call .sThir- ty-three.' In this death count the candidates, six, a dozen, or twenty, put both hands on the table, but with draw whatever fingers they choose Each finger is counted, beginning from a certain point, and the owner of finger No B is eliminated He sits by to see the test marrow down to two per- sons, one of whom will surely be elect ed.
 Equipped with citizen papers, these Italian outlaws scatter all through America. Canada and Mexico. Last year, on nearly the same day, their bands murdered a merchant in Brook lyn, burned the house of a fellow countryman in Hazleton, Pa, and kid mapped a rich citizen of the City of Mexico, holding him for $5O,O0O ran som. Thus far. they have not dared to hold up any person of prominence like MT Rockefeller or MT Morgan, but they may get to it in time.
 For the most part their operations are confined to counterfeiting and blackmailing their own countrymen. In pursuance of these crimes, a murder is every now and then committed. The stabbing of Benedetto Madonia is a precise illustration.
 This man was associated with q counterfeiting gang that has engaged the efforts of William G. Flynn, chief of the New York division of the secret service, for more than year. Ma donia's ibrother-in-law, De Prima, was also of the crowd, but he is now serv- ing four years' sentence in Sing Sing.
 There Madonia visited him recently and learned that the $1 GOO raised to help De Pri1na had been appropriated by the gang" Enraged at this breach of honor in the Mafia, Madonia came from his home in Buffalo to demand the return of the fund, His wife inn plored him not to visit New York But Madonia swore on the brass crucifix about his neck that he would compel the Mafia to accede. The threat he probably used was promise to betray the whole gang and take his punish ment. with the rest. So futile was his errand that, but for secret service vigilance, it is extremely doubtful whether Madonia's body had ever been identified. If the Mafa is mysterious to the point of uncanniness in its op- erations, hardly less so are those men employed by the government to hound it's members. Collier's Weekly.