THE CAMORRA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 17, 14 July 1911, Page 5

THE CAMORRA.

STARTLING DISCLOSURES. ANOTHER SCENE IN COURT. By Cable.-—Press Association.—Copyright Received 13, 0.45 p.m. Rome, July 13. Captain Fabbroni's evidence in the Camorrist trial was continued to-day. Apparently his evidence is the mainspring of the whole prosecution. Fabbroni described the operations of the gangs of the Camorra, who were distributed throughout the town during the elections. Recalcitrant electors were beaten, maltreated, wounded and kidnapped.

Fabbroni's references to the murder of Cuocolo led to Erricone (the leader of the society, who is charged with murder) shaking his bars like a lunatic, yelling: "Murderer! You made my brother die in prison!"

STORY OF THE CAMORRA. A STRANGE BODY. Erricone, otherwise Enrico Alfani, alleged to be the chief of the. Camorra inNaples, is now undergoing his trial with 38 other prisoners at Viterbo. The Camorra, the union of disputatious persons, is a secret society which, for many vears dominated Naples. Originally, so far as can be traced, a league of prisoners, formed for good fellowship and mutual aid, it gradually spread through many branches of Neapolitan society. There was a grand master, whoso name no one was supposed to know, and a court of judges, picked from the twelve branches of the league. Each branch was composed of a number of semi-independent groups, politicians, blackmailers, smugglers, or thieves. The judges met in secret, and sentenced in secret. Those who refused them obedience died, as a long list of unpunished murders testified. The old Camorristi were helped, criminals in its ranks mysteriously escaped punishment: and respectable citizens submitted to its blackmail rather than fight it. It hung like a shadow over Naples. With the coining of popular suffrage the Camorra found a wider field. It, entered local politics, and carried all before it. Shady contractors became its allies, and the local administration of Naples under Camorra influences became notorious throughout Italy. Affairs reached such a pass that the Government appointed a Royal Commission of Enquiry, and the report presented to the Minister of the Interior in 1901 by I Senator Sardello bore out the worst that had been feared. For a time the political influence of the Camorra was checked.

A STRANGE SCENE. A correspondent of the Daily Mail recently described a visit tie paid to the church at Viterbo, in which the trial "is being held, to' listen to Abbatemaggio giving his evidence. After describing his arrival, he says:—

. "A moment later I found myself looking down from the tribune of the north transept upon the amazingly strange scene. Opposite, in the soutli transept, flanked and backed by carabinicri and officers, rose the famous iron cage with its four rows of prisoners; boside it, and a little forward, the smaller, now empty, cage reserved for the accuser; where tlic high altar stood of yore, the judicial Bench presided over' by the bearded judge; in the transept'below me. the jury; and in* the nave, first .the desks and .benches of counsel and solicitors, and further hjick the serried ranks of the unprofessional audience. Above the velarium stretched across choir and nave could be clearly seen the exquisitely wrought capitals of the columns and the vaulting of the roof. THE EX-CAiMORRIST.

- On (he altar steps, facing the jury, stands a smartly dressed, good-loo'kin't', youngish man. His left foot is slightly thrust forward, a bandage protruding through (he slashed leather of the boo". He stands in an easy attitude, his left arm on his back, his right arm accentuating with measured, rounded movements the points of his oration, ire has a pleasant, cultured voice: and he talks eloouent.lv. dispassionately, suavelv, with a balaiiced flow,of language, worthy of a professional orator. "Who is it?" [ asked my neighbor. "Why. Ahbatcmaggio-the accuser!" So this self-possessed, gentlemanly orator was the ex-C'amorrist, the excriminal turned King's evidence! I looked at the thirty-six occupants of the cage--they were, with few exceptions, like Abbatemaggio: well-dressed, well-mannered middle-class people, such as you may meet any day at anv of the better restaurants in a prosperous Kalian town. But for the cage it would have been pardonable to mistake the caged murderers and thieves for the jiirynien-and the unfortunate jurymen, who have to sacrifice their whole' time fQiLlliue months for :is.-td a day, for the accused Camorrists.

Abhatemaugio talks: the prisoners in the cage listen impassively; the Camorra priest Vifozzi. with an indescribable expression of injured innocence on his villainous face, sits immovable Ike a statue lis chin resting on his hands, which are supported by a strong stick. Once only, when the eloquent accuser has divulged a particularly incriminating incident? a wave of shrugging shoulders and other signs of protest^passes through (he sa"o and the priest, with an air of almost grotesque.'hypocrisy, makes the «ig„ of the cross and raises his arms heavenwards as if to implore the Almighty's forgiveness for Abbatemaggio.