To them he is a sort
of demi-god, and they readily become his clients in crime,
taking their wages in experience or whatever part of the
proceeds he doles out to them. Usually the "boss" tells them
nothing of the inner workings of his plots. They are merely
instructed to deliver a letter or to blow up a tenement. The
same name is used by the Black Hander to-day for his
"assistant" or "apprentice" who actually commits a crime as
that by which he was known under the Bourbons in 1820. In
those early days the second-grade member of the Camorra was
known as a picciotto. To-day the apprentice or "helper" of
the Black Hander is termed a picciott' in the clipped dialect
of the South. But the picciotto of New York is never raised
to the grade of Camorrista, since the organization of the
Camorra has never been transferred to this country. Instead
he becomes in course of time a sort of bully or bad man on his
own hook, a criminal "swell," who does no manual labor, rarely
commits a crime with his own hands, and lives by his brain.
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