P.O. Box 789

ROUGH LUMBER

KILN DRIED DRESSED

Ask for Nosco Brand Western White Spruce @ Northern Fir

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C.

P.O. Box 608

Manufacturers of

The Pas Lumber Company (B.C.) Lid.

WESTERN WHITE SPRUCE

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C.

bers who ran afoul of the laws of the
gang and so on.

Having learned this, however, the
later generation scorned the paltry
thousands of dollars that could be
made in the limited field of The
Mafia. They aimed for the millions
that could be made in wider fields;
liquor running, for instance, in pro-
hibition days, labor racketeering on
both sides at all times; factory and
store “protection”; prostitution; nar-
cotics; gambling; slot machines
anything producing illicit dollars by
the million.

The original members of the Mafia
to come to the United States having
died by this time, some of them in bed,
some by the hand or order of their
young countrymen who wanted con-
trol of all organized extortion in their
own hands, the Mafia may be con-
sidered to have passed out of the
picture.

The old Mafia method of extortion
from peasant emigrants from their
homeland with not enough money to
make it worth while by today’s land-
lords is not big enough game for the
more versatile millionaire racketeers
of today.

Despotic Rulers Call the Tune

However, a dollar a day contribu-
tion for “job insurance and _protec-
tion” from thousands of workers still

STONE CREEK LODGE

The newest, most modern and comfort-
able rooms on the Cariboo Highway
at reasonable rates.

LICENSED PREMISES
%* Hot and cold water in every room.
* Rooms with Bath.
%* Wall to Wall carpet.
* Large comfortable lounge room.

* Cafe in connection.
% No parking problem.

Located 23 miles south of Prince George
on the Cariboo Highway

P.O. STONE CREEK, B.C.

TWENTY-SEVENTH EDITION

remains one of the favorite sources of
revenue, collected by underlings for
the overlords of crime, and distributed
by their majesties of extortion among
their faithful followers in such propor-
tions as the despotic rulers decree.

Back to the Mafia,, procursor of to-
day’s lavish operators, it is not pleasant
to reflect that this original brother-
hood of criminals was pawned as the
result of bad government.

It is paradoxical, another bad goy-
ernment—Mussolini’s—did a lot to
destroy Mafia.

Only trouble here, the late unla-
mented Italian dictator, in making
war on The Mafia seized the occasion
to get rid of a lot of honest Sicilians
because they were opposed to the
Fascist government.

Mussolini Waged War on Mafia

However, some credit must go to
Mussolini.

After the fall of the Burbon mon-
archy in 1860 the Italian government
tried to rid Sicily of The Mafia.

Main obstacle was that tolerant
Sicilian provinces and _ easy-going
Sicilian officials seemed to accept The
Mafia as “just one of these things”
and failed to co-operate.

When the Fascist government came
into power, however, the drive was
really put on.

*

Johnny Busch, ar-
rested by Austrian
police for selling
cold tea as whisky,
told them heneeded
the funds to start a
temperance league.

Mr. Stretch owns
a Manchester shop.

line ?
elastic

What’s his
Selling
braces.

*

1233 - 6th Avenue

Using its exceptional powers it had
leaders of The Mafia arrested in
batches of hundred and more. Victims
gave evidence against them. Leaders
received life sentences, accomplices
got long terms.

It was no real death blow to

Mafiaism, however.

The drive against it was hailed as
political persecution. Sicily and Pied-
mont in the North happened to be the
regions of Italy most opposed to
Fascism.

To a certain extent the drive re-
stored the Robin Hood touch and
glamour legend which surrounded its
distant origin.

Once Had Chivalrous Element

It appears The Mafia, although
composed in recent generations of
criminals, at one time had a certain
chivalrous element regarded as a force
fighting misrule and federal abuses.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica says,
under the head of Mafia, that the
word is of uncertain origin, used to
designate a special form of criminality
which arose on the great landed
estates of Sicily as a result of bad
government during a long period of
the island’s history and more especi-
ally during the disorders consequent
on the Napoleonic invasion of South
Italy.

SUPERIOR LAUNDRY
AND CLEANERS

“Make Our Phone Line Your Clothes Line”

Phone 443-L-1

+ + +

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C.

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