talking, nor that the restaurant-keeper might not
put some poison in his coffee. Take it all in all, it was the most
nerve-racking meal he had ever eaten.

Chatting with the Inspector that evening over his Black Hand experiences
he found that his chief took a very serious view of the question.

"If we were receiving immigrants from the north of Italy," he said, "it
would be an entirely different matter, but all the Italians who are
coming in now are from the 'toe' and the 'heel' of Italy, and from
Sicily. You see, the north of Italy are really Celts, like the French
and Irish, being descended from the Lombards, but the Sicilians and
Calabrians are a mixture of the old pirates, the Moors, and the
degenerated Latin races that were left when the Roman Empire fell to
pieces. The endeavor to break up the Mafia sent all the leaders of that
nefarious Sicilian society here, and now the attack upon the Neapolitan
Camorra lands another criminal group. Italy has sent us a larger
proportion of criminals than any other country, and under our present
laws, if they have been three years here, they cannot be deported. The
Vincenzo Abadasso case was a good example of the folly of that rule."

"Who was he?" asked Hamilton.

"He was an Italian immigrant who had been arrested twenty-seven times
and convicted twenty-five and who came over here a couple of years ago.
Within a few months of his arrival he was arrested here and sentenced to
three years' imprisonment And now, although he is a professed criminal,
they won't be able to deport him, because when his prison term is up, he
will have been in the United States three years."

"I suppose there are a lot of Italians coming over now?" said Hamilton
questioningly.

"A little over three weeks ago," was the reply, "as I heard from a
friend in the Immigration Bureau, there was a funeral in a small village
near Naples and not enough able-bodied civilians could be found in the
place to carry the casket. All of them were in America. There are scores
of towns in southern Italy where all the work--of every kind--is done
now by the women, because the men have emigrated."

"What do you think about this Black Hand business?"

"I think your friend the restaurant-keeper was nearly right, only that
it is being used by all sorts of crooks as well, who have no connection
with either the Mafia or the Camorra. Mark you, I think those two secret
societies are apt to be much misrepresented, just as th