It's Always Been That Way?

Frances Elliot, who traveled to Sicily in 1880-81, attended a party given to the city elite by Palermo's leading industrialist, Count Ignazio Florio. She observed: “What struck me most was the sight in the lobby of a table literally covered with all sorts of weapons, handguns, revolvers, knives, sticks, daggers, left by the people invited together with their hats! Such is life in Palermo!”

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection (1996), pp. 80-81.