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--- lesson 14 A noble gangster |
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--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below. |
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--- How did Hawkwood make money in times of peace? |
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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'. |
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If the money was not paid promptly, the gangsters would quickly put a man out of business by destroying his shop. |
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Obtaining 'protection money' is not a modern crime. |
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As long ago as the fourteenth century, an Englishman, Sir John Hawkwood, made the remarkable discovery |
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that people would rather pay large sums of money than have their life work destroyed by gangsters.^ |
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Six hundred years ago, Sir John Hawkwood arrived in Italy with a band of soldiers and settled near Florence.^600 |
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He soon made a name for himself and came to be known to the Italians as Giovanni Acuto. |
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Whenever the Italian city-states were at war with each other, |
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Hawkwood used to hire his soldiers to princes who were willing to pay the high price he demanded. |
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In times of peace, when business was bad, Hawkwood and his men would march into a city-state and, |
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after burning down a few farms, would offer to go away if protection money was paid to them. |
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Hawkwood made large sums of money in this way. |
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In spite of this, the Italians regarded him as a sort of hero. |
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When he died at the age of eighty, the Florentines gave him a state funeral |
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and had a picture painted which was dedicated to the memory of 'the most valiant soldier and most notable leader, Signor Giovanni Haukodue'. |
