Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1908-07-16
ITALIAN CRIME STUDY
Brooklyn Man Will Investigate
the Malta In Italy.
NATIVE HAUNTS TO BE VISITED

Spend TWO mohtnS WIN an G$PeTt
Investigating Black Hand Sources.
Inquiry as to Effectiveness of an
American Secret Police.
John E. Clarke of Brooklyn, district
attorney of Kings county. N. Y, and
his Italian expert, T. L. Corrao, who
recently sailed for Italy on what Is
primarily to be a pleasure trip, but
which they hope will prove Of advan-
tage to the public, will be gone for
two months and during that time will
study the operations of the Italian
courts and police, particularly the way
they handle that peculiar kind of crime
hysteria known as the Black Hand and
Malta. Incidentally they will conduct
Investigations to learn how General
Bfnghams plan for a secret police
ought to work In the United States.
Mr.. Clarke has felt for some time
that more intimate knowledge of
home conditions in Italy would assist
him in his work. Brooklyn has a
large Italian population. 1t was at
Mr.. Corrao's suggestion that he decid-
ed upon the scheme of spending his
vacation studying the Black Hand and
Malta in their native haunts.
Mr.. Corrao knows as much about
Italian criminals and their ways as
perhaps any other man in the United
States. He has made n special study
of the subject, and his place in Mr..
np1ya hrOnpht him intn
touch with them many times. AL
though a Sicilian himself, he does not
attempt to minimize the extent of the
operations of Italian criminals and
even denounces those people who do
so as really antagonistic to his coun-
trymen.
! "It is quite true there is a great deal of
| crime among the Italian population" he
! said to a reporter of the New York Post.
| AN honest man cannot deny It, Per
haps, II may be said, the amount of Ital-
| ian crime is not out of proportion to the
large number of Italian citizens we have.
but nevertheless there is great deal of
it, too much of 1t. People who try to
| wink at that fact are really anything but
| friends of Italians. They are actuated
! by fear that the barriers against irnmi-
| grafton may be heightened, and solely on
/ political grounds they decry the extent of
| Italian crime.
Personally 1 have said that the only
way to keep Italian crime in check is to
! increase the difficulties of entrance into
the country for men who have demon
strated unfitness to be law abiding citi-
| zens. If within a few hours of his ar
| rival in America man is found carrying
| a pistol he should be deported at once.
That kind of man is no good. Also
| would have every man who within rea-
sonable space OF time after his arrival
! violated the law sent back to that place
| from which he came. whether he was an
Italian or of any other nationality.
ION this present trip we are going es-
| pecially to study the operations of the
Black Hand and Malta people, who are
found more in Sicily than in the northern
provinces of Italy. 1t is peculiar char
acteristic of italian criminals by the
way, that / can generally tell the prov
ince a man comes from by the nature Of
| the crime he commits If / hear of
man being slashed in the body with
sttletto, 1 am reasonably sure that
Neapolitan did It; II q man has been
slashed in the face, 1 put it down to
Calabrian. Sicilian is inclined to use
bombs The meanest OF all Italian criE-
inals come from the north of Italy, from
Piedmont. They are the Italian conf
dence men, and there are no worse law
breakers in the world than they.
Mr. Clarke and I shall visit many of
the principal cities and towns throughout
Italy and have talks with the chiefs OF
thing we are anxious to find out is what
the Italian police think Of General B!ng-
hams scheme for having n secret police
TO keep tab on conditions without the
knowledge of the regular police force.
The Italian police arc used in secret on
eratons and they ought to know how
much such plan would be worth. Some
people here think 1t would be futile, be-
cause after making one arrest and hay
ing to appear IN court and make Lis
charge the secret officers identity would
be established,
Then we shall find out what r-eauz
the Italian police are talking at present
to control Black Hand operations. Much
can be learned In that way. We shall
hear Of the latest tricks Of the criminals
and we shall probably have chances to
be present at the examinations OF aprra-
hended lawbreakers and witness the ltal-
ian system OF examination and prosocu-
ton.
"An interesting phase OF Italian crime
is what is known as romcrta. This Is the
unwritten understanding that seems to
exist everywhere In certain classes that
men who are arrested must not tell on
their friends even though they them
selves may not be guilty of participation
in the offense. This frcerasonry often
makes it hard for the police to secure
evidence, and we shall he glad to find out
what Italian police are doing to combat 1t.
There is no doubt that we ought to
gain quantity of interesting infurma-
ton which will largely assist Mr. Clarke
in his work, The intimate contact with
Italian conditions alone will do much to
give n closer insight into the peculiar
workings of the Italian mind. And l Gm
sure that the Italian police will be ,-lad
to extend every courtesy to us 1t secus
the logical thing to do-to go to the
places from which the criminals come for
information about them
"Do we expect to find out just what are
the Mafia and the Black Hand? Well !
don't see how we can. We know as well
as we possibly can l think already The
best definition l ever heard of this kind
or crime was that whenever group of
ded together-say six from Pa
Sicily, and a couple from an
o.. age-with the tacit agreement
thu '."N mould subsist on blackmail or
sto!-a .an".y they constituted a Malta or
Black l--.d band. There is no regular
organization, no formal agreement-just
tacit understanding. Add to this that
the Mafia is formed of two different
classes of people, high and low and has
more distinctive system of freenason-
~, and you can describe the two forms
of crime hysteria as well as any man"
New Rubber Forests.
1t Is reported that in the mountain
rnfrtnnc nf hn a.