Mafia

ma-fe'a, a secret society of Italy. It originated in Sicily toward the close of the nineteenth century. The members avenge their wrongs, real or fancied, with the stiletto. They are bound by oath not to carry any dispute into court and not to give evidence if summoned as witnesses. If anyone offend the Mafia, members are detailed by the officers of the organization to take the offender's life. Locally the society is noted for assassinations, and for an undue influence in the control of elections and other public matters. Owing to the large Italian emigration to the United States in the last quarter of the century, the Mafia has made its appearance in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and other large cities. No Italian dare on his life give the police authorities information relative to the workings of the society.

In Sicily the Mafia rose to such a pitch that it became a national scandal. Extortion, blackmail, theft, arson, and the silent stiletto made life hardly endurable. The police shared the profits; the soldiers protected the police; the very judges on the bench protected the criminals and saw to it that none were convicted. Finally, King Victor Emmanuel took action. He sent some honest regiments from the Tyrol and the border of Switzerland to the scene. They swept the island. Unless a man could clear his skirts of suspicion he was shot. Over 5,000 members of the Mafia, and like enough some innocent persons, were executed on the spot. So far as organization goes, the Mafia was crushed. Many migrated to America.

So far as America is concerned, the worst outbreak occurred in New Orleans among the Italians engaged in loading and unloading ships. There were two rival organizations of stevedores. The stiletto societies began to get in their work. David Hennessy, chief of police, was stabbed in the back on the night of October 16, 1890. He had just passed a dark doorway in which the assassins were lurking. The citizens rose and lynched a lot of the worst characters they could lay hands on. What is left of the Mafia exists, it is believed, in local stiletto clubs without a widespread organization, and yet every now and then murders are committed thousands of miles apart that suggest the existence of some criminal directing central agency.

See Sicily