For several years there had existed two rival stevedoring firms in New Orleans, the Pro venzanos and the Matrangos, which were in competition for the business of discharging and loading the vessels engaged in the Central American trade. The Provenzanos controlled this business for some time, but their services proving unsatisfactory for some reason, the work was transferred to the rival firm. Then the trouble began. The Provenzanos contended that their services had been dispensed with be cause the shipowners were held in terror by the Matrangos, who had threatened them with the Mafia. The Matrangos, however, denied the imputation, and made counter charges in which the Mafia played an important part. In accordance with his duty the chief of police pro ceeded to look into the matter. Absolutely honest and utterly fearless David Hennessey realized that his discoveries would cost him his life if the society he had unearthed should ever be able to reach him. °They may get me," he said to a friend, "but if they do they will get me in the back,' a prophecy which was realized on the night of 16 Oct. 1890, when he was shot to death on Girod street. The assassins had been concealed in doorways and, after he had passed, had stepped out from their hiding place to rain upon him a perfect fusillade of bullets. He had threatened to exterminate the Mafia and the Mafia had replied by removing him.
The finale to the story is a unique page in American history. Arrests were made, but conviction seemed impossible, and, at last, the people of the city determined to take the matter into their own hands. That there v:ere stiletto societies in New Orleans was no longer a mat ter of doubt. They existed and they threat ened the security of the city. Their members had killed the chief of police and they had threatened to kill others, including Mayor Shakespeare, who had been bold enough to say: " We owe it to ourselves to see that this blow is the last. We must teach these people a lesson that they will not foript for ail time. No community can exist with murder societies in its midst. The societies or the community itself must perish." The blow that followed was one from which the Mafia in this country never recovered. It was not used to that treatment, and, since the New Orleans lynchings, it has not raised its head. Police reports have indicated, however, that it still exists in private, and there arc occasional crimes that may he traced to its door, but this dark-cellar existence has little about it to inspire dread, even in the heart of the most timid. Another Italian crim inal society appeared in Turin in 1868. Organ ized for the systematic commission of large criminal affairs, it made a specialty of safe-rob bing, but undertook any promising robbery, and did not hesitate at murder. At one time they had 200 members. When the public became aroused to extirpate them, few could be lo cated, and it was believed that most of them escaped to the United States. From 1905 to 1909 °Black Hand" associations were active in the United States and led to the assassination in Palermo 13 March 1909 of Joseph Petrosino, a New York detective who had shown especial skill in tracking the criminals.
From time to time organizations, more or less criminal in purpose, have come into exist ence in the United States, and it argues well for the character of the people that their life has invariably been of brief duration. As long as the Ku-klux Klan maintained its original purpose it was unmolested, but when its mem bers resorted to the deeds of violence and bloodshed which made its name the synonym for the most brutal lawlessness, both North and Southjoined hands to wipe out the organiza tion. See KU-KLUX KLAN.
With 12 murders and a countless number of attempted assassinations to its credit Mollie Maguireism terrorized the coal fields of Penn sylvania for more than 20 years. Unlike the Ku-klux Klan, the Molly Maguires were utterly devoid of noble principle. The first
lodge was instituted with criminal purpose and from that day until the last Molly murderer was hanged it remained the most thoroughly organized murder society this country has ever known. For years it was the power which ruled in the coal fields. See MOLLY MACUIRES.
From the time of its earliest historical rec ord Asia has been at the mercy of its murder societies and other criminal organizations. The dacoits of India, the Hindu thuggee, the khunhuz of northern Asia, all prove that, from one end of the continent to the other, crim inals believe in seeking safety in numbers. The Boxers of China, who are but one of the many criminal wings to the vast secret society system which prevails in that country, have exploited their strength so recently that their horrible work is still fresh in the minds of the civilized races of the world. For absolute corruption, for unalloyed crime, no criminal organization yet known to history can compare to those of China, and some of these associations still flourish, to a certain extent, in every large city in this country under the name of highbinders. One of the most powerful is the Sam Hop, known here as the Chee Kung Tong. The history of the Sam Hop Tong can be traced back more than 250 years. According to tra dition it has existed since the establishment of the Chinese nation. Its organization is said to have been due to divine revelation, and it is known that, in its early days, its character was enirely patriotic. It has always been a power in the Celestial world. It helped to over throw the Tartar Dynasty, it was the cause of the Tai-ping rebellion, and of the more recent Ko Lo revolution. Many of the most frightful outrages against the missionaries can also be traced to the Sam Hops. During the two or three centuries of its existence, however, the character of the association has changed. From a patriotic organization, whose only ob ject was to protest against the outrages of a foreign dynasty, the society has become an association of men banded together solely for purposes of murder, robbery and blackmail. On arriving in this country the Sam Hops or ganized under the name of Chinese Masons, and it was not until 1891 that the police acci dentally discovered that the apparently inno cent title was a shield to disguise a criminal association. By this time, however, the Chinese quarter of San Francisco had become a hot-bed of crime and highbinder outrages were of fre quent occurrence in every large city in the country. Victims of the Sam Hops, unwilling to apply for police protection, organized rival tongs. At first the murders had been com mitted only by ones or twos, but finally pitched battles were held on the streets, on which occa sions scores of lives were taken. These mur ders, however, were not the only bad feature of highbinder domination. When the members were not killing each other they were levying blackmail upon merchants and wealthy Chinese, compelling them to pay exorbitant prices for the privilege of being unmolested. They also pursued highway robbery with perfect fearless ness and assumed entire control of the traffic in slave girls. In San Francisco, where they were most bold, the police often declared war against them, but with little success until about 1898, when the Chinese business men took the matter in hand, and, at their request, the Chi nese officials in this country appealed to the home government for assistance. Then a cru sade in earnest was undertaken.. The meeting places of the various tongs were found and broken open; record books and other document ary evidence was seized, and hundreds of ar rests were made. As the punishment which followed these arrests was applied in the Chi nese custom,• extending to the relatives of the offenders, those who were still in China being killed and tortured, it was not long before the criminal organizations were driven into com parative obscurity.