There was a time when the owners of shops and buinesses in
Chicago had to pay large sums of money to gangsters in teturn for
'protection',If the money was not paid promptly,the gagsters
would quickly put a man out of business by destroying his shop.
Obtaining 'protection money' is not a modern crime.As long ago
as the fourteenth century,an Englishman,Sir John Hawkwood,
made the remarkable discovery that people would rather pay large
sums of money than have their life work destroyed by gangsters.
Six hundred years ago,Sir John Hawkwood arrived in Italy with a
band of soldiers and settled near Florence.He soon made a name
for himself and came to be known to the Italians as Giovanni Acuto.
Whenever the Italian city-states were at war with each other,Hawkwood
used to hire his soldiers to princes who were willing to pay the high
price he demanded.In times of peace,when business was bad,Hawkwood
and his men would march into a city-state and,after bruning down a few farms,
would offer to go away if protection money was paid to them.Hawkwood made
large sums of money in this way.In spite of this,the Italians regarded him
as a sort of hero.When he died at age of eighty,the Florentines gave him a
state funeral and a picture painted which was dedicated to the money of
'the most valiant soldier and most notable leader,Signor Giovanni Haukodue'.