SECRET SOCIETIES FOR ARRANGING MURDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 253, 4 March 1911, Page 10

SECRET SOCIETIES FOR ARRANGING MURDERS.

EUROPE HONEYCOMBED WITH, THEM. The whole Continent of Europe, is honeycombed with secret societies, who set all laws at defiance and are a constant terror to law-abiding people. Morountzeff, the man who died through being accidentally shot by a fel-low-criminal during the attempted burglary in Houndsditch, was known to the Continental police as the desperate leader of a gang of holligans and thieves which he had got together, known as the "Zmowa Robotnicza," the members of which devoted their energies to robberies with violence and attacks upon banks and commercial houses. In these outrages seven persons were killed. Twelve members of this gang were ultimately captured and hanged, but Morountzeff escaped. One of the most terrible of these leagues of criminals is the dreaded Mafia, which has terrorised Sicily for several generation, and is said to be specially active just now. Its amiable code of honor is to defy the law, and to rule the island by .threats and violence. According to M. Gianelli, the Mafia is "an unapproachable and multiform union of persons of all classes, who aid each other, in spite of the law and morality, to murder, to intimidate, and sequestrate landed proprietors, to raise a ring in the corn-market, to forge wills, to influence the'resultg of trials, and to push their best men into Government offices." Its ranks include men of all classes, from outlaws to mayors and judges, and from thieves and sharpers to members of Parliament. At one time this remarkable band confined its efforts principally to> kidnapping the sons of rich families and to coining false money. Now they draw most of their revenue from levying blackmail on wealthy landowners in return for their protection, and by assisting smugglers. Direct robbery and violence are resorted to only for vengeance. How powerful the .Mafia is is shown by the following stories. One day a large case arrived at the Palermo Customs labelled "Biscuits." The Customs ollicials opened it, and discovered half a million francs in forged bank notes. Not one of them, however, dared to speak. The case was re-closed and sent on to its destination, a well-known and "honorable" merchant, without a word. In another case the young son of a certain prince was kidnapped and a sum of 100,0001'r. was demanded for his return. The prince immediately sent the money, without breathing a syllable to a single soul about the incident, which only became known to the police some time later from a discovery of the letters of negotiation.

Much more far-reaching and almost as terrible is the Camorra, an organised band of assassins who infest Turkey and stretch their fearful tentacles over almost the whole of the Levant. This society had its origin in the former kingdom of Naples, where it plundered and terrorised the country, practised wholesale smuggling, and undertook, for a suitable reward, to commit any crime, from murder to arson.

Candidates for membership swore upon an iron crucifix a fearful oath of fidelity and secrecy; and only after a long period of training and probation received the two knives of peculiar form by which the Cammorristi recognised one another. _ In Turkey, where the Camorra is particularly active at present, incendiarism is its chief occupation. It is said that three fires out of every four in Constantinople are the work of the Camorra, whose method is to remove all valuables from the chosen house or shop, saturate the walls and floors with petroleum, and set fire to it. The agent who refuses to pay the insurance money is promptly assassinated.

But the services of the Camorra are available to any who are willing to pay heavily enough for them, from a jealous wife who wishes to get rid of a fair rival to the tradesman who cannot collect his debts. If threats fail, a stab in the dark invariably settles the business satiifa«torily. Like the Mafia, the Camorra draws its members from all classes, from the working man to the man of rank and fashion; and any disloyalty means death to the recreant member. Among many other secret societies in Europe—the Carbonari in Italy, the Nihilists in Russia—the Hetaira has had princes and even kings among its members. The Czar Alexander I. owed allegiance to the Hetaira, and Napoleon 111. was, throughout his reign, submissive to the Grand Master of the Carbonari, whom he joined as a young man. The Grand Duke Nicholas Constahtinovitch, who was exiled to Siberia for stealing his mother's jewel 6, was a member of the Nihilist society, and had for his wife a Nihilist, daughter of the postmaster of Tashkent.