Had the working of the association contemplated
nothing beyond the exaction of a tax,
without assuming, or affecting to assume, some
relative obligations, it is likely enough that it
might have been long since resisted. La Camorra
was, however, ingenious enough to pretend to a
paternal care for its followers, and it at least
provided that they should not be robbed or
pillaged by any other agency than its own. For
this purpose, a careful selection of those who
were to carry out its edicts was necessary, and
admission into the order was only obtained
after due and unquestionable proofs of courage
and boldness. In fact, the first task usually
proposed to an aspirant for the Camorra was an
assassination, and, if he shrank from the task, to ensure
secresy his own life always paid the penalty.

The society consisted of a number of
distinct groups or knots, under the guidance of
a chief—the Capo di Camorra, as he was called—
who treasured the revenues that were brought
in, and distributed the payments to the followers
with an admirable fairness and regularity. These
sums, collected in the most minute fractions
from every fashion and form of human industry,
and even levying toll upon the gains of
mendicancy, rose to very considerable amounts, and
were sensibly felt in the diminished revenues
of the state, which they in a measure anticipated
and supplanted.

While the Bourbon government tolerated this
gross abuse as exercised among the humble
classes of its subjects, it also availed itself
of the Camorra as a means of intimidation or
vengeance, and gave up the whole discipline
of its prisons to this infamous sect. Here it
was, in reality, that the Camorra ruled supreme.
The newly-admitted prisoner had but to pass
the threshold of his cell, to feel himself in its
toils. The first demand usually made was for
a contribution to the lamp in honour of the
Virgin, over the door; for the Camorra is strictly
religious, and would not think of dedicating a
locality to its vices without assuring itself
of the friendly protection of a chosen saint.
The privilege to possess money, to buy food or
eat it, to smoke, drink, gamble, or sing, was
taxed; and the faintest show of resistance was
met by the knife. Indeed, he who determined
to resent the dictation of the Camorra soon saw
that he must place life on the issue. If, aided
by a stout heart and strong hand, he conquered
his adversary, he was himself at once affiliated
into the society, and was recognised by its
members as worthy of the order. In this way
a priest, who sturdily resented an attempt to
extort money from him, and who in the struggle
that ensued fatally wounded his antagonist, was
presented with a powerful stick by an unknown
hand, and handsomely complimented on the
courage by which he had distinguished
himself. Though the Camorra, therefore, declared
its protective care of all beneath its rules, it
never vindicated the fate of those who
defended themselves ill; nay, it took measures
always to mark that courage was the first of
gifts, and that he who was unequal to his own
defence could not be relied upon to protect
others. Success, too, was exalted to the
position of a test, and no extenuating circumstances,
no plausibilities, could absolve him who
failed. There was an obvious policy in this.
The system depended entirely upon intimidation,
and it was, above all things, necessary that
the opinion should prevail that its victims never
escaped. So wide-spread and general was this
impression, that every secret vengeance, every
dark and untracked crime, was unhesitatingly
referred to the Camorristi. With such an
unrelenting persistence were they wont to track and
hunt down their victims, that men have been
known to commit crimes, and get consigned
to prison, for no other object than to be fellow-
prisoners with one whom they had doomed to
destruction.

Outside the limits of their own sect, the
Camorrists pretended to be, and in some respects
were, the friends of order; that is, they lent a
willing aid to the police to track out all
malefactors who were not Camorristi. They were
ever ready to suppress riot in the streets, to
arrange disputes that grew up at play, and to
arbitrate between contending gamblers. They
assumed at times, too, the functions of benevolence,
and took upon them the care of the suffering or
the wounded by the accidents of street warfare.

Of the modes in which they contributed to
establish something like discipline in the prisons,
the police reports are full. The mean and
cowardly jailers relied upon them almost
exclusively for the maintenance of order; and
whenever, from any chance outbreak among the
prisoners, some feat of personal daring would
be called for, it was at the hands of a Camorrist
it would be required. When it is borne in mind
that the Camorra was thus regarded and
recognised by the state, it need be little wondered
at that its exactions were submitted to with
patient obedience by the poor, unprotected and
undefended as they were.

A market-gardener at one of the city gates
was lately congratulated that the odious
imposts of the Camorra were no more, and that
he had no longer to groan under the insolent
tyranny of this robber association. His answer
was, "So much the worse. The Camorra
demanded his mulct, it is true, but gave us
protection in return. It watched after our
property in the streets, and suffered none to
defraud us. If we have lost one robber, we
have gained thirty." And so through every
industry that the poorest live by, was the
Camorra recognised. It was the ever present
help to every form of human wretchedness,
indicating—just as disease will sometimes indicate
the remedy—how a people might be cared for
and guided and protected, their lives assured,
their property defended, had the government
that ruled them been only more eager for
the good of those under its sway than for a
demoralisation and abasement which made them
easier to control, and fitter tools of despotism.

In the lottery, the Camorra played a
distinguished part, the news of the successful