THE TRUE ROSA TORTURICI
■ • -■•'- , ■■■•
•""■"N OSA TORTURICI Wants to go
V J home Jo her mother.
ROSA Independence, Louisiana,
hom«* Jo her mother.
Independent . Ixuisiana,
\ which isn't much of a place
in itself, except that th sweet
ness of the orange blossoms sweeps |
over it like a breath from heaven,
there's a. shabby little house with
not much furniture worth mention
ing in it, a poor, bare, squalid lit- ;
tie place; but Rosa Torturici longs with
all her heart to take her baby in her
arms and go there— because her mother
Is there, and her little sisters, and her
father. .
Life has been very hard for Rosa
Torturici in the past few weeks; inex
pressibly terrible; she has suffered a
cataclysm, and —
Rosa Torturici wants to go home to
her mother.
Somebvw that puts nidi a different
complexion on things. Somehow all my
preconceived notions are broken and
swept away, as the load carries off the
dam like so much matchwood.
Somehow —
Well. I srucss there comes a time in
every one's life when be wants to go
home to his mother. \
Sorrow, suffering ' and lost illusions
make little children of us all-
Rosa Torturici is the pitif ulsst fig
iii all San Francisco, i
• •••••
Three weeks age she was quite un
known, a shabby, girlish little creature
with her baby at her breast— such as
che is even now, but hidden then in the
dim obscurity of poverty.
There came the revelation of the
murder of Biaggio Vilardo, so shock-
Ing, so atrocious, so elemental in Its
brutality that the whole city revolted
and sickened at it.
Then, with the startling prominence
of a single, more-than-life-size figure
thrown upon a screen, Rosa Torturici
is dragged out of her dim obscurity and
thrust into the glare.
She is the wife of the murderer.
She was in that basement-flat where
the butchery was done.
She knows —
What does she know?
She is the only one to lay hold of;
jhe was so near to it that the horror
ri the crime attaches to her.
All the city is saying her name.
When she comes first into the clare
she is regarded with repulsion: there is
something, monstrous, sinister about
the shabby, girlish little creature with
her baby at h^r breast— and even now
time has softened the feelinsr only into
a distant pity, tinctured with aversion.
tempered with suspicion.
The fiercely dramatic character of the
crime lays hold of your mind whether
you will or not. Each one involuntarily,
reluctantly, irresistibly reconstructs the
scene for himself, sees the swift, heavy
blow of the cleaver, the increasing fury
and terror of the murderer when the
blow has fallen and there is no draw
ing back, dripping with the warm blood
of his victim, panting, sweating, hurry
ing to conceal the deed. .' •;,"-
It is so elemental it speaks of the
dawn when men clothed themselves in
skins, and killed after the manner of
beasts, for their mates or each other's*
possessions, or in unreasoning hate. . -
We ask of each other. "What; kind of
human beings are these who can do'
• such a thing?" - .
• • • ,
Preconceived . notions are of little
value after aIL
I go to the City Prison with the '
warning words of Emerson in mv mind
that we must remember there are com
ing to our shores many who are "but
one degree above the quadruped." -
. Rosa Torturici sits by the grated
prison window, her wide-eyed baby girl
on her lap patting her little hands to
gether and crooning softly.
It is such a fragile, shabby little
figure sitting there, slight as a fifteen
year-old girl's, with the cheap white
shirt-waist untidily flaring Ibose from
the skirt belt, and the black skirt rent
at the knee. It is such a pretty, young,
.appealing face framed in the mass of
brown hair. The skin is of the creamy
tint and texture of a cVlla. The brown
eyes are large . and prominent and
luminous. The long nervous, strain.
perhaps the awful things they may
have looked upon, make them appear to
be starting from the head. In profile
they, are so prominent that you can see
a golden light through the iris. Be
tween the brows the same nervous
strain has knotted a frown into two
deep •wrinkles. The chin is round and
small, and. the mouth a soft little bud
that quivers v*ith the overtension of
the nerves and relaxes now and then
into a wan little smile.
These signs— the starting, brilliant
eyes, the troubled, knotted brows, the
quivering of the lips — are the only evi
dences of emotion she has given ex
cept on that day when she was taken
to the Morgue to look on the mangled
body of her husband's victim and she
tore her way out screaming:
"I have never looked upon one who
has died by the hand of God! Por Dio!
How can I look upon him who has died
—like that!"
The wide-eyed baby girl slips to the
■floor. and with a confiding smile tacks
her course to me on chubby ' bow legs
to make overtures of friendship, and
Rosa Torturici tells me, by way* of
Judge Spinetti, her attorney, who ■ in
terprets for us, her little life story. She
tells it with vivid Italian gestures arid
volubility— but the volubility is of nar
rative, not of self-analysis.
She comes from Sicily, yes: from v
Cefalu. ' •-:■'■' " •
Her father. Domenieo Farraco, was a
vineyardlst there, and lived at Cefalu,
which is larger now than it was when
she was a little girl. They lived al
ways in the ■ village except - for two
months in the summer, when the whole |
family, father, mother, two sons and V
four daughters, went out with the fam
ily donkey "arid cart, to being in the '
wine and the grapes. ;
She went to the Church of San Gio- :
vanni and made her . confession and ■
got her confirmation in Cefalu.
Can she read and write?
. Oh." yes; she says -with animated
pride. She is quite educated. She went
to the Government school of Cefalu. i
and not only that, there -were asDira- .
— you must know how great a dis
tinction it is for the poor Sicilian.-for
the peasant Sicilian, U- be able to read ;
and write to appreciate the dizzy |
height of these aspirations: there were :
aspirations' in the family for. her to be
come a teacher. Her mother. Leonora
Serrio," which means "serious." wished
her to be a teacher, and she not only
went to the Government school, but she
studied at home with a private teacher
to help her on. '■ ;. . \
And • her family, she ! goes on ,with '
innocent pride, -all her family are edu- :
cated.
I So. too. testified Crispino Vilardc. •
the brother. of the murdered man. at ,
the inquest. He said that her family in \
Sicily, were all "fine people." i
Yes, she smiles that is true: not one
of thorn ever had to go to some one
else to get a letter written, or read.
Every one of them can read and write—
they are quite educated. "
And little Rosa, after she had made
her confession and got confirmed by
the padre of San Giovanni, and had
become educated so that she success
fully passed the examination of the
elementary school, came to this coun
try. ; . '; ; - .
Her father, had come here ■ before,
and after making money enough in the
orange groves of . Louisiana had sent
for his family.
And Rosas thirteenth birthday was
r assed on shipboard on the Atlantic.
And then when she was fifteen years -
old another great event happened.
All the family, the father, the mother,
and sisters and . brothers, r were*out for *
a Sunday jaunt -In- their waeon. in
the orange grove country north of New
Orleans, all in their very best Sunday
clothes,' ' and ?as ,- gay as . only • those
,sunny southern people can be— and she l
saw for the first time Pietro Torturici.
He was on a Sunday outing, too. and—
whether it was the Sunday clothes, or
the Sunday gayety, or just fate, he
made up his mind as soon as he set
eyes on her that he would have her
for his wife, •
Before the week was well becrun be
came to her father's house and asked
to marry her.
Her father and. her mother thoucht
well of It, for he was a Sicilian, too.
and young and strong and earning the
munificent sum of $47 a month in a
livery stable. . ' : i : ' . " .
Rosa demurred; she. was too -young.,
she could wait; she would know him
better before deciding, ; while her
mother, Eleonora, urged • her not to let
the chance slip by. . "A girl must marry
while she is young; when she's old—'
• her mother shook- her head discourac- '
ingly. .... . ' ' '. : r -
Pietro Torturici came for ; his , an
swer himself. She remembered the day
well. She was standing by the window
combing her younger sister's hair, and
he came to the outside of the window
and asked her to speak for herself. He
wanted no go-betweens. She hung her ;
head, and looked away, 1 and would not
say yes — nor } yet no. But It must be
yes or no, and straight \to him. fU He
didn't want her father I and mother to
make up her mind for her- o So — she
looked at him again— fand; looked away'
and said yes she would marry him. :
. Th<?n,* after a little while-her father
and mother ' were as much opposed to
her marrying him as they: had been in
favor of it. ■ • - '■ ■ ■■ ' • ■'■"■*. '■■*'
Why? • ' '"•■ %'% ' \:Vf}.. ■ ,"• ■-' •
Because ■ Torturici , was so boyish, so
full of fun,. so. light-headed and light
hearted. ' Why, he skipped- rope and
played ball and made 'jokes and whit
tled and sang like one of the little boys.
But she liked that in him as much
as the father and mother disliked it;
and now that they had put him in ; her
Way and urged her to marry him she
had learned •to love ' him, and, say
what they pleased,', she would. marry
him. . ':'■ -r
» So- they were married at the Church
of St. Bernardo in New Orleans just
three months after the day they met
on the Sunday jaunt. She was just a
' few months 1 , over 15, and he was 18.
That was a little more than five years
ago. H^jgJaSS *
He had been a good husband to her,,
joyous, improvident, generous; gt)od—
in his way. . / ..-■'. • -v. './- : . >
When he had money nothing was too
good for her. ! Why, he . didn't ! even
want her to cook when : they lived in
New Orleans.' He woujd take her ;to
restaurants \ to, eat, and so, too, here , In
San Francisco when he had the money.;
to do it. : '
There were grand feasts and merry
. makings in those t queer -Latin quarter.
■ restaurants, - where ; the dubious two-bit
table ! d'hote ! flourishes. '■:■ ■.
.;'_■ He took her to "the ■ theater, too, every
time" he had the money; sometimes, in
times •of affluence, every night •to the
teatro Americano, and to those cheap
flittering places on upper Kearny
street and Market.
Once he had all of a thousand dollars
—in hills— saved up, she believes, out of
iis wages as a section foreman. And
ike a thrifty little wife she went
hr<iugh his pockets and took it away
from him and hid it— the whole fat
Aad of bills — in her bosom and tried to
>ersuade him to buy some land near
her father's home with it. And he
vould have done it— how the lightest
.vind changes our 1 course — only that
licre was a difference of opinion about
who should have the croi> on the land
in question. He wanted to become own
?r of it with the cron"; the owner want
ed the cro:>. But for this difference
\'<<'iv Hvda might be her own house
lolder now and neighbor to her father,
Vilardo alive and Toriurici not a fugi-
Livp from justice.
The thousand dollars melted away.
ill but three hundred cf it. and with
he three hundred Torturici came to
Califoini.-L two years ago to try liis for
tune. He loft ltosa in New Orleans
and, heedless, improvident, pleasure
loving, he spent the entire three hun
dred coming out here. Instead of mak
ing a through trip he stopped off
ivherever fancy moved him to, because,
says Rosa, he liked the good time.
He sent for her, and when she joined
him here there was nothing in the mis
?rable basement rooms he had for her
;xcept a bed. Still, they were happy
md went to the theaters and the 25-
table d'hote dinners when he had
work.
And the baby came.
And the rent of those two dingy
basement rooms at 710 Montgomery
street could not be paid. The butcher,
the baker and the grocer were not too
cordial about charging things — some-,*
times they wouldn't charge them.
They moved to 736^ Green street.
They took Yilardo as a lodger, and
then
The awful thing that sent a shudder
■
through the whole cit • happened.
No, no; not in all the time she had
known him and been wife to him had
she thought he could do such a ter
rible deed. Nothing had ever suggest
ed the possibility of it.
He would get angry with her. oh, ter
ribly angry; fly up with a flash like
a can of powder when a match is
dropped in. He was impulsive — yes; so
quick — and like mad. But in a moment
it was over — he would cry, yes. cry,
and say he was sorry for being unkind
to her.
And now, after having done this
thing, if he was any sort of a man, if
he had ever loved her and the baTsy, he
would come back and present himself,
so that she might go free.
She spread the morning paper out on
her knee, smoothing it where her pic
ture and the baby's were displayed upon
the page, and pointing to it said with
feverish earnestness to Judge Spinetti
and to me.
"Yes, if he is any sort of a man and'
he sees this— that I who am innocent
and the baby to which he is father are
here, in prison, he will come back; no
matter where he is, he will come back
and present himself, bo that we shall
not suffer the punishment."
It is perhaps a childish conception of
chivalry and duty, but Rosa Torturici's
is not a complex mind.
Whether she knows much or little of
that shocking crime, whether or no
she had an awful share in it, volun
tarily or involuntarily, who shall say?
Not I, for one; for it is not given to a
mere newspaper woman to read the
naked human heart.
Only three could unravel the mys
tery of it all — Vilardo, Pietro Torturici
and his wife, Rosa, and Vilardo is
dead.
Was It because of the sin of Rosa
Torturici? Did she fall through her
soft affection? She is such a pretty
little creature, and beauty allied with
weakness makes its appeal to man.
Was it in a transport of jealousy that
death was dealt in such fearful form to
Vilardo? •
Was it because the rent could not
THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL.
be paid for the two mean little rooms
at 710 Montgomery street?/ Because
there was no longer credit with the
butcher, the baker and the grocer?
Because there was not even the mac
aroni and tomato paste and pepper
paste to set upon the bare table — and
Vilardo's savings offered the one so
lution to the grinding problem how to
ifve?
Or was it the vengeance of ; the
Mafia?
The upper-class Italians laugh at
any mention of the Mafia? There is
no Mafia, they tell you.
"There Is no such thing as Mafia
in San Francisco," says C. F. Gron
dona of the Columbia Banking Com
pany, which holds the savings of the
Italian colony, Sicilians and all. "Why
should there be Mafia here? That is
a thing'of the past in Italy."
"Mafln!" says Carlo del -Pino of
L'ltalia, "What does any one mean by
Mafia? Why. if two or three or four
or five agree together to do a thing,
bind themselves together for the pur
pose of vengeance, that is a Mafia.
But big secret organization— here; oh,
no."
"If there is Mafia here I should
know it," says Judge Spinetti, "for
my practice is in criminal cases.
There, is no Mafia here. Once only do
I remember any one connected with
the Mafia — that was Vincenzo Trop»
oni. who threw cayenne pepper into an
officer's face to let his prisoner escape.
He was sentenced and served his
time— and never had anything to do
with Maria after that."
On the other hand there was that
affair with Italy over the killing of
Chief of Police Hennessey in New Or
leans In" 1891. Eleven men were
lynched in the Sicilian quarter in New
Orleans as the result of that, hanged
to telegraph poles, while women waved
approval from their balconies to those
who took the law into their own hands.
It cost the United States a pretty
penny In indemnity, which" is some
proof of a Mafia.
There was the murder mystery of
Jackson Park, in Chicago, not so very
long ago, where an Italian was found
dead from a poignard thrust with an
"M" cut in the snow by his side. What
did that mean?
From the time of the middle ages
there has been that secret power in
Italy that has driven terror and the
stiletto to the hearts of authorities
unapproved.
It has been driven south in Italy
by an increasing liberality and free
derm and enlightenment until its
remaining stronghold is conceded to
be Sicily, where the people, with their
admixture of the Oriental and the
African, offer' a temperament peculi
arly susceptible to its teachings.
My vegetable' dealer tells me, "They
stick you quirk in SicTly," and he
comes from Palermo.
More learned authority says that
"people of every rank, profession and
occupation, who have no other ties,
unite for their common interest, with
out regard to law, justice or public
order. They believe that they can
best prov'de for the safety of their
own persons and of their prop
erty by their own strength and per
sonal influence, independent of all
authority and of all law."
That is a nice, scholarly way of
putting it. but the Mafia maxims that
are the common conversational ex
change of Sicily are more character
istic.
"The poor." they say. "resort to
force, fools resort to law."
"Take the life of whoever makes
you* lose the means of living."
"Be respectful to officers of the law,
but stand afar off.
"An influential friend is worth more
than I^ooo lire in your pocket."
"Imprisonment, sickness and mis
fprtune prove the hearts, of friends."
"The truth is only told in the con
fessional."
HELEN
DARE
Italy says she doesn't want the Ma
fia. All Sicily is the home of the Ma
fia. The constant preasure has
squeezed over 30,000 Sicilians out of
Sicily into this country.
They are still Sicilians, still Maflosi.
The leopard, it is said, does pot
change his spots — even by emigration.
It may be that it was the arm of
the Mafia that struck down Vilardo.
It may be that it was need or jeal
ousy.
The awful thing was done and Rosa
TorturicJ, wnose mmd is not complex
nor refined to splitting hairs in .the
problems of life, what did she do?
It is known at least that she labor
ed at removing the traces of the
crime — the blood-soaked apron, the
little handprint on the floor. the
washing of clothes all tell that.
It is" known that when the detec
tives went from house to house seek
ing an owner for .he shawl she kept
her own counsel.
That she confessed to knowing of
no missing lodger.
That she did not go to the police and
denounce her husband as a murderer
is also true.
That she has been sullen and secre
tive is true.
But she is not a very advanced
woman, not educated to very high
standards of public duty. I fear.
She only acted upon her instincts of
wifely duty, perhaps.
If It had been your husband, the
father of your baby — of course, that's
quite an impossible supposition — but
if it hail been, what would you have
doTie in her ;>lace?
I put a rather cruel question to
Rosa Torturici" as I said good- by. I
asked her, and Judge Spinetti inter
preted it with great care, what she
would do if Torturici came back.
That it seems to me- — for life is so
complex — a harder question to decide
than what to do when he went away.
Quick upon the heels of* the ques
tion tame her answer. She has no
two minds about the matter. She
knows what she wants to do.
"If he comes back — and he should
come back ard release me from this
place" — in her ignorance she believed
that she would be kept in prison until
Torturici was found — "I never want
to see him again. Never! Never! I
want to get out of here. I want to go
away from San Francisco, where this
thing happened. I want to get away
from all that will make me remem
ber it.
"I just want to take my baby and
go home to my mother."