Word: sicilian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...occupation of Sicily, Nino Cottone was respected partly for his wealth and partly for his excellent connections in the Demo-Christian Party. But the foundation of Nino's respectability was the fact that he was boss of the "Mafia of the Gardens"-the section of the world-famous Sicilian criminal syndicate that "protects" Palermo's fruit marketmen and citrus growers...
...along the driveway by two streams of machine-gun bullets. As his family and friends poured out of their houses, Nino painfully lifted up his bullet-ridden body and stumbled to the threshold of his villa, where, leaning against the door, he died on his feet as a good Sicilian should...
Streamlined Service. Nino Cottone's death was one more indication of an amazing change in Sicily. For more than a century any Sicilian who paid "protection" to the Mafia was virtually immune from theft or attack. In those days the murder of a Mafia member like Nino meant only one thing-he had betrayed the organization. Lately, however, the once unquestioned authority of the Mafia has been challenged by a rival syndicate that calls itself Anonima Delitte-Crime Incorporated. In the past two years Crime Inc. has murdered 22 Mafia men. Result: a sharp drop in public faith...
Tribal Patterns. Italian police were unhappily forced to concede that they have little effect on either Mafia or Crime Inc. Many Italians are inclined to blame police ineffectiveness on the fact that carabinieri forces in Sicily are staffed and directed by mainland Italians, who do not understand the Sicilian temperament and the intricate, tribal patterns of Sicilian behavior...
...five years since he wrested control of the Florence city government from the Communists, Sicilian-born Giorgio La Pira has conscientiously followed this simple approach to public problems and private funds. With a cheerful disregard for legality, the onetime professor of Roman law has seized bankrupt factories to prevent dismissal of their employees, requisitioned private dwellings to house the poor and financed public works so expensive that they have exhausted Florence's legal borrowing power until the year...