Now, what are the phases of the Mala Vita--the Camorra, the
Black Hand, the Mafia--which are to-day observable in the
United States and which may reasonably be anticipated in the
future?
In the first place, it may be safely said that of the Camorra
in its historic sense--the Camorra of the ritual, of the
"Capo in Testa" and "Capo in Trino," highly organized with a
self-perpetuating body of officers acting under a supreme
head--there is no trace. Indeed, as has already been
explained, this phase of the Camorra, save in the prisons, is
practically over, even in Naples. But of the Mala Vita there
is evidence enough.
Every large city, where people exist under unwholesome
conditions, has some such phenomenon. In Palermo we have the
traditional Mafia--a state of mind, if you will, ineradicable
and all-pervasive. Naples festers with the Camorra as with a
venereal disease, its whole body politic infected with it, so
that its very breath is foul and its moral eyesight
astigmatized.
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