A writer on this subject in the Edinburgh Review for April more than confirms all that we stated on Italian Brigandage in an article last January. We have in particular from this writer a clear account of that system of organised iniquity known as the Mafia, with its kindred associations the Camorras. The Mafia, in fact, has an endless ramification of spontaneous and illegal societies, and it comes pretty much to this, that society in Sicily, high and low, official and non-official, is one great confederacy to rob and murder at will, and otherwise defy or circumvent the law in any way that seems best. The curious thing is how any show of orderly civilised usages can be maintained. Externally, in Palermo and other places, there is an aspect of peacefulness and honesty; but beneath the surface nearly all proceedings are regulated by force and deceit. The very attempt to seek protection from the law brings down vengeance so remorseless that well-disposed persons are fain to be silent under extortion. There are three hundred and sixty communes in Sicily, and every one of them, says this writer, 'has its own Mafia, of which the character varies according to local tendencies and interests. In one place its energies are devoted to the conduct of the elections and the manipulations of the ballot-box; in another, to directing, by means of a Camorra, the sale of church and crown lands; in a third, to the apportionment of contracts for public works.... By a singular anomaly, the middle class—that very class of which the absence is deplored in the rest of Sicily as the absence of an element of order—forms in Palermo the chief strength of the Mafia. Its proverbial virtues of prudence, industry, and foresight are here exercised in the calling of crime. The so-called Capi-mafia are men of substance and education. To them is due the consummate ability with which the affairs of their association are managed—the unity of direction, precision of purpose, and fatality of stroke. They determine with unerring tact all the nice points of their profession; in what cases life may be taken, and in what others the end in view can be attained by mere destruction of property; when an important capture is to be effected; when a threatening letter sent, or a shot of persuasion fired; when it is advisable to suspend operations, and when to inspire terror by increased ferocity. By them, relations are maintained with government offices in Rome, whose intrigues are generally successful in obtaining the dismissal or removal of obnoxious officials; so that complicity with crime is an almost necessary condition of permanence in any responsible position.'

For this state of affairs, which violates all our conceptions of a civilised community, the reviewer offers no practical scheme for redress. Reform, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, seems impracticable. Society is leagued to maintain a universal terrorism. Judges, magistrates, police-officers are incorporated in the gang of evil-doers. The military sent to preserve order are inefficient. Whether from fear or favour, brigandage is triumphant. Evidently the Italian government is powerless to cure the disorderly condition of Sicily. The very members of the government labour under suspicion of complicity. More probably, they are afraid to give offence by acting with persistent vigour. Constitutionalism carried to excess in a region wholly unprepared for it, even in a moderate degree, might be described as the bane of the country. It is in vain to appoint new native magistrates and new police, for all are bad together. The feeble military force sent to support the law is out-manoeuvred or laughed at. Without denying that things may mend in the course of ages, we should say, that what Italy wants is a Cromwell with his Ironsides to stamp out by military execution the ingrained villainy which now afflicts one of the finest and most productive islands in the world. As there is, however, no chance of a soldier of the Cromwell type casting up, Sicily, we presume, must continue to be a disgrace to Italy and as great a scandal to Europe as Turkey.

W. C.