Growing Up Mafia

My effort to break up all the New Orleans coverage. I find this type of stuff fascinating:

When still a schoolboy the American gangster Charles (“Lucky”) Luciano noticed that some of the older Irish and Italian kids were waylaying the younger and smaller Jewish kids on their way home from school, beating and robbing them. [Lucky] turned this to his profit. For a penny or two a day, he sold his protection to the potential victims. If they paid they could be sure that their daily trips to and from school would be made in safety, for though young [Lucky] was never a giant, he was tough enough and old enough to make his promise of protection stick. . .

Mafioso education has its costs, too. A retired boss recounted that when he was a young boy, his Mafioso father made him climb a wall and then invited him to jump, promising to catch him. He at first refused, but his father insisted until finally he jumped--and promptly landed flat on his face. The wisdom his father sought to convey was summed up by these words: “You must learn to distrust even your parents.”

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection (1996), p. 35.