THE METHODS OF THE MAFIA.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1902, 10 November 1913, Page 5

THE METHODS OF THE MAFIA.

(To tho Editor.)

Sir,—Can you tell me whether the Federation of Labour is affiliated to the notorious Sicilian Society of the Mafia, which it imitates so closely in its aims and methods ? The Mafia, too, seeks to make itself more feared than the law, and to rule the island. It 'directs strikes, fixes tho hire of workmen, compels employers only to engage members of t'ho society, "Mafiosi," and draws a revenue from all prudent owners of property, who pay blackmail for protection against the dropping of matches and other accidents lately enumerated so eloquently by one of. our most polished orators.

Most members of the Mafia are inactive and unentliusiastic, but in joining the society they renounco their liberty and are forced to follow tlio more violent spirits. These are led by the most fluent speakers, who, oL course, are invariably the wisest thinkers and the most' skilled workmen. So passionate and unreasoning are Sicilians that to vote in a minority at a Mafia meeting is dangerous. Haying enslaved themselves, members (like most renegades) are extremely bitter against those whom they have left: for workmen who keep their birthright of freedom the Mafioso carries in his mouth a cesspool of scurrilous nicknames. These terms, like all abuse, are characteristic of the speaker rather than descriptive of tho object. Of lato years the general population of the'island has shown an unaccountable weariness of being tyrannised over, and a regrettable desire for social freedom. It opposes the boycott, the vendetta, and other weapons of the Mafia, which is steadily losing ground. However, it seems to be flourishing in New Zealand. —I am, etc., ENQUIRER,