otherwise? I have spoken to numbers of them, and this is what they say:

"This country has done nothing for us; why should we fight its battles?
Not long ago we were almost devouring each other in our hunger; what did
they do to help us? If we have emerged from misery, it is due to our own
initiative and the work of our own hands; if we have decent clothes and
decent houses, it is because they drove us from our old homes with their
infamous misgovern-ment to seek work abroad."

Perfectly true! They have redeemed themselves, though the new regime has
hardly had a fair trial. And the drawbacks of emigration (such as a
slight increase of tuberculosis and alcoholism) are nothing compared
with the unprecedented material prosperity and enlightenment. There has
also been--in these parts, at all events--a marked diminution of crime.
No wonder, seeing that three-quarters of the most energetic and
turbulent elements are at present in America, where they recruit the
Black Hand. That the Bruttian is not yet ripe for town life, that his
virtues are pastoral rather than civic, might have been expected; but
the Arab domination of much of his territory, one suspects, may have
infused fiercer strains into his character and helped to deserve for him
that epithet of _sanguinario_ by which he is proud to be known.




XXVII

CALABRIAN BRIGANDAGE