Word: ganges
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Last week in Termini Imerese, Sicily, a strange legal case began ?the trial of the 153 members of the Andaloro-Ferrarello gang. It was strange because the prisoners were brought into court in iron-barred cages and arranged around the room like wild animals, guarded by a small army of colorfully uniformed Carabinieri with fixed bayonets...
Interest centred on Giuseppa (Josephine) Andaloro, mother of three sons and four daughters, together ringleaders of the Andaloro-Ferrarello gang. She, a toothless, white-haired hag, was called the Queen of the Mafia gangs. Her word was law. Dressed in a man's clothes, she was wont to ride around the country marking out victims for the Mafia. She it was who ordered murders, robberies, extortions, ambushings, torture, kidnappings. None dared disobey her commands...
...word was such that she commanded the members to marry whomsoever she should select. Without her consent none could marry. Many a match she broke. This she did in order that her followers might make good marriages, "good" meaning an accretion of wealth for this and that gang...
...trial began with evidence from Salvatore Ferrarello, notorious chief. He denied that he was ever a member of the Andaloro-Ferrarello gang. "That is absurd," said he. "I have always been their enemy." He denied, as was to be expected, all the crimes with which he was accused. Extortion in particular he condemned as a "frivolous" act. "I would be ashamed to commit it!" said he. "Although I am the nephew of Gaetano Ferrarello, [another notorious bandit chief who killed himself in prison rather than face trial], I am proud to proclaim that I am an honest...
...recalled that in June 1918 the Bolsheviki confiscated oil fields, refineries, machinery, stocks, assets and even the "trinkets and jewelry belonging to employes." Added he: " "Politically, this is called confiscation; practically, all these objects were stolen, not by representatives of the people, but by a gang who, by controlling the army, had usurped the power to do anything which would not have been tolerated otherwise...