marks of this last kind rarely fail of their purpose, for cases are known where jurymen and witnesses have been murdered the day following that on which a prisoner has been found guilty. Money is used with both jurymen and witnesses, if they are susceptible to that argument; and the organization seldom fails in its afforts to secure an acquittal. In fact, it is impossible for a jury to do its duty with the Damoclean sword of the Mafia hanging over its head.

and they cut his thumb until enough blood | necessary, punish his persecutors. Rehas flowed to smear the effigy. He then takes the oath and sets fire to the saint. The candidate is afterwards required to shoot at a crucifix as a symbol of his willingness to assassinate any person, how ever dear to him. Colacino, in his "Rivista di Discipline Carcerarie," gives the oath of the Fratellanza as: "I swear on my honor to be faithful to the Fratellanza as the Fratellanza is faithful to me. As this saint is buried and these drops of my blood, so will I shed all my blood for the Fratellanza; and as these ashes and this blood cannot be restored, so can I never be released from the Fratellanza."

When the society is short of money, subscriptions are requested with a politeness so formal as to be humorous. The The formula for the recognition of one preliminary movement is a threatening member by another is somewhat interest-letter, full of "humility," and couched in ing. The colloquy begins with a familiar artful terms of diplomacy. It begins with question: "Have you a cigar stump? a flourish of titles: "Your Excellency and My tooth aches." "Yes." "What time your illustrious Lady have an abundance, is it?" "My watch is thirty minutes and it is necessary to make an appeal to slow." "How long since?" "Since your generosity, though it is unfortunate the 25th of March, the day of the Annun- that your Excellency should be disturbed. ciation." "Where were you on that day?" Some poor fathers of family are in great "I was at- (here he names the place destitution, and ask for "[here the amount where he was initiated). "Whom do you is inserted] "because their dependents adore?" "The sun and the moon." are many." They are sure he will grant "Who is your god?" "Aremi" (a play- their request, and beg to assure him of ing-card). their eternal gratitude and unconditional devotion, and they also add that he will be "left in peace." If, after some days, no response is made, a second letter follows, in which the writer intimates that, because of the delay, he himself is being suspected of treachery to his fellow-sufferers, who are now discussing the use of harsh measures. Then, if the recipient of these communications still remains silent, woe betide him! The heads of family issue their final warning: "You are a dead man!" or, "You will pay dearly for this!" The police are informed, and make a fruitless search for the offender and his accom. plices. For a time, when the informer goes out, he takes a protective escort of a few friends or servants; but lulled to a sense of security by two or three months of immunity from attack, he finally ventures out alone, is assassinated, and all the neighborhood knows whence the blow fell.

The Mala Vita, the organization of which is very elaborate, is divided into three sections the Camorristi, Picciotti, and Giovinotti. The oath of initiation is comprehensive: "With one foot in the grave and the other in chains, I swear to abandon father, mother, wife, children, and all kindred in order to make war upon the infamous and to protect the humble." The object of this society is theft, the fundamental principle being that "those who possess nothing have a right to live at the expense of those who have property." The license to steal is given to all members; but they are required to divide the spoils with the Camorristi. The other obligations imposed upon members are similar to those already mentioned.

If a member of the Mafia is arrested, the machinery of the fraternity is put into play at once, and much ingenuity is displayed to secure his release. Should it happen that the case is referred to the criminal court, there commences a series of intrigues and intimidations that continue until the jury have given a verdict. The names of the jury are first procured, and attempts are made to influence those who may be engaged. A possible juryman hears intimations that the prisoner is the victim of the plots of his enemies, but that he also has many powerful friends, who will defend him at any cost, and, if

That the strength and influence of the Mafia is recognized with apprehension by the Italian government is undeniable; and facts revealed at the recent trials at Bari and New Orleans tend to confirm the opinion that it is now closely allied with the Anarchist movement. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Italian police, its power is rapidly increasing, and its attitude towards both government and society is certainly the reverse of reassuring.

From The Spectator.

THE ULSTERMAN IN AMERICA. Now that the eyes of the whole country are turned towards Ulster, the moment is opportune for a brief glance at the notable share her sons took in the founding of America. To any one who is in touch with genuine American feeling on these matters, it would seem almost cruel to compare the position held by the two branches of the Irish race in the Transatlantic mind. The modern Irish-American, the Catholic from the South and West, numerically powerful though he be, is an importation of yesterday. As a social element in American life, he belongs wholly to the latter half of the nineteenth century. It would be ludicrous to pretend that he is regarded by any American who is independent of his vote with either liking or respect. In fact, the contemptuous bitterness with which educated Americans in private life inveigh against the Irish element in their midst is so unmeasured, that even the brutal Saxon and most abandoned of Balfourians cannot help feeling something like a touch of weariness, and even resentment, at this wholesale denunciation of his late fellow-subjects.

astical intolerance held them were the main cause of the long-continued exodus; but the confiscation on a colossal scale of their improvements by some of the greater landlords was a constant source of irritation and rupture. The Scotch-Irish immigration was unlike any other great movement of population into America, either before or since. Such towns as there then were they gave no thought to. The older farming settlements they left at once behind them. The half-settled territory further back they rarely stopped in; but by far the greater portion went straight to the wilderness, and prepared to fight both the forest and the Indian. New England seems to have been uncongenial to these Irish Puritans, and the stream flowed, and continued for fifty years to flow, into the middle and southern colonies for the most part. The Ulstermen, however, mingled neither with Quaker, nor with Dutchman, nor with Cavalier. To appreciate the singular independence of their settlement, one must call to mind the map of the American colonies of that date, and the distribution of the colonist population. Roughly speaking, the English settlements south of New England In almost grotesque contrast to this is consisted of a strip upon the Atlantic the veneration, the profound respect, ac- coast, averaging perhaps two hundred corded to everything connected with the miles in width. Behind this strip-along Scotch-Irish stock and their history. It is the whole line of its rear-from Georgia hardly too much to say that the two races to the borders of New York, towered the stand, in the estimation of the average frowning ranges of the Alleghany MounAmerican, at the opposite poles. The tains, while behind the Alleghanies were modern Irish immigrant suggests to his chaos and the dreaded Indian. Into the imagination at once a pauper who shuns troughs of the mountains, into the densely the forest and the prairie, swells the slums wooded and well-watered valleys that lay of the big cities, amasses money by para- between the lateral ranges, far in advance sitical rather than industrial methods, and of the mansion of the planter and the uses it to debauch the body politic. The farmhouse of the English settler, the Scotch-Irishman, on the other hand, is a Ulstermen threw themselves with fearless historical figure. In the most critical and and splendid confidence. They had carved dramatic periods of American history, out homes once on the stony hillsides of when the sword and the plough, the rifle Ulster. Their reward had been contempt and the axe, were carving out great States, and banishment. This time they were the Ulsterman was conspicuously pre-determined the fruits of their labors eminent. In the Middle and Southern States to-day, when a man is spoken of as being of Scotch-Irish stock, a compliment is implied as a matter of course in this simple statement of a fact.

should be their own. The exodus was divided, and took two different routes. One stream poured into the country at Philadelphia, the other at Charleston. Thence they went straight to the frontier. The Irish-Protestant Nonconformists As years passed on, the northern stream began their great exodus to America about pushed its way southwards along the 1720. It would be futile to lament at this slopes of the Alleghanies, and the southlate date the direful policy that drove thou- ern stream moved northward along the sands upon thousands of the virile race that same great mountain rampart, till they had conquered and civilized Ulster to a dis- met. Their ministers, their customs, and tant land. A hundred thousand are said their religion went with them. They to have crossed the Atlantic in ten years. were nominally within the boundaries and The civil disabilities under which ecclesi-jurisdiction of various colonies. Yet they

ARTIFICIAL "WATER MARKS."-Every- | distinguish between the real and fictitious. thing is artificial nowadays, from rubies down- Like many such things, it is extremely simple wards. One would have thought that, except when you know how to do it. In the genuine for the possible purposes of fraud, no object water mark the lines consist of portions of would have been gained by the production of paper which actually contain less material the "water mark" in paper by other than than similar neighboring parts, while in spu the legitimate means, which consist in form-rious cases the quantity of paper pulp is the ing the device constituting the water mark in slight relief on the surface of the roll used in forming a film of paper pulp as the initial step towards its becoming a sheet. Misplaced ingenuity has, however, sufficed to produce a spurious water mark by mere pressure on the finished paper, and it is sometimes of importance, particularly in forensic chemistry, to

I. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. By Sir Henry Elliot, Nineteenth Century,
II. AUNT ANNE. Part IX.,

III. HISTORICAL RIMINI,

579

Temple Bar,

Temple Bar,

Scottish Review, .

638

578 THREE STAGES OF LIFF,

578

578

578

640

POETRY.

578 EVENING PRIMROSE,

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL & CO., BOSTON.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.

For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co.