River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1908-09-24

he is an ex-convict he is under the
constant necessity of reporting fire.
quently to the police; he cannot carry
any deadly weapon-not even peck
etknife-and the permission of the
chief of police is necessary before he
can obtain employment. The law in
addition says that he must not leave
Italy. refusing him a passport. This
has made the smuggling of the crimi-
nal on ships bound for the United
States quite a profitable little sub-in-
dustry among BLACK Hand" sympa-
thizers who happen to hold posts of
one sort or another upon the Mediter-
ranean steamers AS the months go
by one criminal after another slips
through and almost invariably makes
his way into New York.
The nameless brotherhood has yet
other projects of reform in view. 1t
confesses freely that, regarding the
public part of its work, it wants the
open support of the people and the
government. 1t will ask for making
punishable by Imprisonment as we'll
as by fine the carrying of firearms. 1t
will demand the restriction of the sale
of fireworks to national holidays.
Now there are innumerable saints
days among the Italian population of
New York, and these celebrations are
elaborate beyond all description. Fire
works have grown to be very large
and important feature of them. They
are a constant source of danger for the
reason that during the firing off of
rockets and the incident noise OF other
explosions there is ample opportunity
for criminal who wants to settle
private grudge or to terroriZe in some
way to whip a pistol from his pocket
and fire hurriedly. His victims drop
in the general excitement and noise,
it is scarcely known how.
IN EVERY vessel sailing from Pal
~ ermo or Naples are a dozen or
more members of the CammOrra or
the Malta, employed as sailors, coal
beavers and stewards, says Lindsay
Denison in Everybodys. 1t is their
fraternal duty to aid their brethren
to evade the passport law. 1t there
are six or more members of ships
company earnestly DESTROYS of con-
cealing a stowaway the thing can al
ways be DONE There are recorded
instances where stowaway has been
hunted for three hours by 20 men.
after all the officers and crew have
been sent ashore, and has remained
undiscovered because he was seWed
up in mattress in bunk.
When the steamship has tied up at
her berth in an American port, the
fugitive puts on the uniform or over
alls of one of his confederates and
easily makes his way off the pier. And
thus a seasoned and hardened crimi-
nal, his blood-stained hands against all
the world as the worlds hands are
against him, he is turned loose in the
land of the free and the home of the
brave. Every steamship man con-
cerned in the Mediterranean trade
knows something of the system; one
of them has admitted these facts. 1t
is the theory of the professional po-
liceman of America that the Italian
criminal comes to us through France
and Canada. That is nonsense; he
has neither the intelligence nor the
means.
The ey-convict has the New York
address of one or more former mem
bers of his society in Italy. He
makes his way to this address as
quickly as he may. He is without
work and in strange country. 1t may
be that happy chance will find honest
work for him at once. But usually it
is not so. He becomes, more likely, a
willing and useful tool of the "Black
Hand" a dependent on the generosity
of more thoroughly acclimated crimi-
nails. The stealthy delivery of black
mailing letters, the Standings, the
bomb paintings, and even the murders
of the "Black Hand" type are done by
men who are so ignorant and so help
less that they face starvation if they
do not carry out the orders of the
BLACK Hand" thugs who house and
feed them after their surreptitious
entry into the United States.