The Black Hand was a method of extortion, and gangsters of Camorra and the Mafia practiced the method. U.S. newspapers in the first half of the twentieth century sometimes made reference to an organized "Black Hand Society", a criminal enterprise composed of Italians, mainly Sicilian immigrants; however, many Sicilians disputed its existence and objected to the associated negative ethnic stereotype,[1] but this was not the only viewpoint among Italian-Americans. Il Telegrafo: The Evening Telegraph, a newspaper for the Italian American community in NYC, printed an editorial on March 13th, 1909 in response to Joseph Petrosino's assassination, which said in part: "The assassination of Petrosino is an evil day for the Italians of America, and none of us can any longer deny that there is a Black Hand Society in the United States."[2]