* Thus may be
accounted for much of the supposed "romantic, if misguided,
chivalry" of the south Italian. It is common both to him and
to the Bowery tough. The writer knew personally a
professional crook who was twice almost shot to pieces in
Chatham Square, New York City, and who persistently declined,
even on his dying bed, to give a hint of the identity of his
assassins, announcing that if he got well he "would attend to
that little matter himself." Much of the romance surrounding
crime and criminals, on examination, "fades into the light
of common day"--the obvious product not of idealism, but of
well-calculated self-interest.
* Much more likely in Italy than in the United States.
As illustrating the backwardness of our Italian
fellow-citizens in coming forward when the criminality of
one of their countrymen is at stake, the last three cases
of kidnapping in New York City may be mentioned.
About a year and a half ago the little boy of Dr. Scimeca, of
2 Prince Street, New York, was taken from his home.
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