新概念英语36必备.docVIP

新概念三 Lesson 14 A noble gangster 贵族歹徒 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 Johan Hawkwood arrived in Ital