“Oh!” answers the Mafius’. “Is he? Well, if that is so, I’ll leave him alone—as long as he is paying for protection _by somebody_.”
The reader will observe how the silence of “the man of honor” is not remotely associated with the Omertà. As a rule, however, the “men of honor” form a privileged and negatively righteous class, and are let strictly alone by virtue of their evil past.
The number of south Italians who now occupy positions of respectability in New York and who have criminal records on the other side would astound even their compatriots. Even several well-known business men, bankers, journalists, and others have been convicted of something or other in Italy. Occasionally they have been sent to jail; more often they have been convicted in their absence—_condannati in contumacia_—and dare not return to their native land. Sometimes the offences have been serious, others have been merely technical. At least one popular Italian banker in New York has been convicted of murder—but the matter was arranged at home so that he treats it in a humorous vein. Two other bankers are fugitives from justice, and at least one editor.
To-day most of these men are really respectable citizens. Of course some of them are a bad lot, but they are known and avoided. Yet the fact that even the better class of Italians in New York are thoroughly familiar with the phenomena surrounding the Mala Vita is favorable to the spread of a certain amount of Camorrist activity. There are a number of influential bosses, or _capi maestra_, who are ready to undertake almost any kind of a job for from twenty dollars up, or on a percentage. Here is an illustration.
A well-known Italian importer in New York City was owed the sum of three thousand dollars by another Italian, to whom he had loaned the money without security and who had abused his confidence. Finding that the debtor intended to cheat him out of the money, although he could easily have raised the amount of the debt had he so wished, the importer sent for a Camorrist and told him the story.
Two weeks later the importer was summoned to a cellar on Mott Street. The Camorrist conducted him down the stairs and opened the door. A candle-end flaring on a barrel showed the room crowded with rough-looking Italians and the debtor crouching in a corner. The Camorrist motioned to the terrified victim to seat himself by the barrel. No word was spoken and amid deathly silence the man obeyed. At last the Camorrist turned to the importer and said: