Clipped From The Courier

I TRACED .MOB MAFIA Mysterious Crimes Among Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Miners. FORMIDABLE BAXD OF BUIUANDS. A Series of Slurders and Robberies That Recall the Iays of the Molly Maguires. James Passarella the Leader How the Gang Operates. The recent arrest in Luzerne county, Pa., of nine Italians has brought to light the fact that the gang of assassins and highwaymen that has for months past terrorized terrorized that locality was a branch of the infamous Mafia society, which has been transplanted from Italy to this country. Several of the prisoners have confessed that they worked under orders received from the headquarters of the Mafia in New York and Philadelphia. ' There is every indication that the organization organization now being broken up is the worst lot of thugs that has vexed this country since the citizens of New Orleans took the law into their own hands and exterminated that brood of Mafia murderers who brought a long series of assassinations to an end by ambushing and killing David Honnos-sy, Honnos-sy, Honnos-sy, the chief of police. The thoroughness with which the criminal criminal enterprise was organized in Luzerne county is indicated by the fact that James Passarella, the leader of the gang, was sent on from the Mafia headquarters in Philadelphia for the express purpose of superintending and directing the work of the lawbreakers. When dynamite was wanted for the blowing up of a house, a bomb was manufactured in Philadelphia and sent by express. Every detail of the business was carefully planned. Probably the gang would still be at liberty liberty and thriving by violence if they had not become intoxicated by success and begun begun to rob Americans. The victims identified identified three highwaymen, who were at once arrested and promptly began to confess the crimes of their confederates in order to shield themselves from punishment. The territory in which the Italian marauders marauders worked is that tract of wild and mountainous pine clad country in the JAMES PASSARELLA. southern part of Luzerne county. Nearly all thecrimes have been committed within a radius of six miles of Hazleton. In that pretty town of 20,000 inhabitants crime is all but unknown, but scattered about on the outlying hills lives a population of the most degraded foreigners in America. They live on the coal patches. A very few of them work in the coal mines. The bulk of the foreign population work at "stripping" "stripping" old mines or as slate pickers. The average Pennsylvanian contemptuously contemptuously refers to these immigrants as "Hikes" and "Hunks." The "Hikes" are Italians and Sicilians. "Hunks" is a corruption corruption for Huns, but under this title the Pennsylvanian includes Hungarians, Lithuanians, Slavs, Poles, Magyars and Tyroleans. Gangs of from 10 to 20 men live in each "boarding house," kept by a fellow countryman countryman and his wife. The complications, jealousies, quarrels and murders that naturally naturally attend this mode of existence may be easily imagined. Indeed it has long been the custom for the Luzerne county authorities to pay not the least attention to the deeds of festive "Hunks," who invariably invariably celebrate a christening, a wedding wedding or a funeral by drinking vast quantities quantities of beer and whisky and make memorable memorable their drunkenness by 6hooting and killing one another. James Passarella, 25 years old, bright eyed, ruddy cheeked, with crisp, curly black hair and a tall, athletic figure, was sent to Lattimer from Philadelphia last May by the officers of the S'afia. Fellow robbers joined him. They came from Old Forge and Scrsvnton, Pa., and somo of them from Sew York, recently arrived from Salerno in Italy. They picked up recruits among the.coal patches. Passarella was authorized by the Mafia to act as chief and entirely control the doings of his associates. He made regular reports to the home officers of the organization in New York and Philadelphia. Soon the gang began to work. At first they stole chickens and poultry from the roosts and stable sheds of the neighbor hood. These were 6old through Vito Gallo, who works for his brother, a butcher in Diamond avenue, Hazleton. But thi3 was merely by way of practice. The gang wanted bigger game. They soon began to "hold up" and rob inoffensive and drunken drunken Slavs, Poles, Tyroleans and Huns along the dark and lonesome roads. The victims were stripped of coats and shoes as well as watches and money. Often, with com bined thrift and irony, the robbers seized the revolvers the poor "Hunks" carried. Stolen property was sent to New York and Philadelphia, to be sold and accounted for by the Mafia chiefs. The robbers of the coal regions lived in clover. They were paid regularly 25 cents a day, whether they "worked" or not, and when they "worked" on the gloomy roads at night they received a proper share of the spoils. For a long time the Americans did not waste a second thought on the poor "Hunks," who were set upon, beaten, 6tabbed and robbed in the dark. They laughed when they read in the newspapers of such occurrences. Finally they became so bold that they began to invade the town. Then the au thorities sot to work, and after some good work by Italian detectives succeeded in arresting nine of the gang. The prisoners made haste to confess, in the hope that they would escape puni-hinent, puni-hinent, puni-hinent, and im plicated many of their ivscomplices. The grand jury of Luzerne county has found true bills against four of the prison ers for murder and against the rest for arson, robbery, burglary, larceny, blowing up a house with dynamite and assaults on women.