14 A noble gangster

There was a time when the owners of shops and businesses in Chicago had to pay large sums of money to gangsters in return for ‘protection’.

If the money was not paid promptly, the gangsters 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.