The Camorra, the union of disputatious persons, is a secret society
which for many years 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, whose 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 Cammoristi 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.
From The Times, London,
13 March 1911.
