CARNIVAL OF CRIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 25, 29 January 1921, Page 7

CARNIVAL OF CRIME.

Hf THE UNITED STATES. A REIGN OF TERROR. (Prom O?T Special Correspondent.) SAX FRANCISCO, December 28. A veritable carnival of crime has swept the United States from New York to San Francisco, compelling lawabiding citizens to arm themselves tor self-protection against" swarms of desperate bandits who are over-running the country, striking terror into the hearts of the nation and almost completely baffling the brigades of police who are attempting ro cope with the unparalleled situation which has suddenly descended upon the Republic like an eclipse. Persons are being bodily held up at the point of revolvers in broad daylight in the streets of many big American cities, and the brazen effrontery of the desperadoes has reached such limits that in numerous instances they nave walked calmly into large hotels and have unceremoniously gained uninvited admission to the apartment* of guest 3 whom they have relieved of valuables after gagging the victims and then quickly disappearing, leaving no trace is & clue to their identity.

Countless causes are attributed to this wave of lawlessness which' has surpassed any records in the criminal annals of America.

It has been observed that the advent of the present period of trade depression in the United States synchronised with a marked addition to the ranks of organised bands of robbers who have been roving around the country with but little molestation. It is claimed that many of these law-breakers have been driven to desperation through inability to prove sustenance for their families, and the reckless spending of war profiteers careering madly through the streets in fashionable limousines and indulging in other ostentatious extravagances, has aroused within the breasts of unemployed workers an irrespressible desire to recover from these unholy profiteers some of their ill-gijtten gains wrested from the outraged public. COMPARISONS WITH ENGLAND Raymond Fosdick's report on crime in the United States has resulted in turning the batteries on "God's Own Country," and incidentally furnishing some unpleasant comparisons -with England's moral conditions. , It is pointed out that in 1916, the city of Chicago, only a third of the size of London, had nearly twelve times as many premeditated murders as the hub "of the British Empire. And while Philadelphia and Glasgow are much the same size"; the American city came proudly off with two hundred and ■ eighty-one murders, while the Scotch metropolis could only boast of nine homicides. New York, which for many years has attempted to out-rival Lon l don &£ regards its census, had six times as many murders as the British capital. It would take twenty cities the "size of Los Angeles to make one like London, but in 191!», the southern Californian city recorded ten more murders than . the whole British metropolis. Xor is j this remarkable enterprise in assassinI ation at all exclusively foreign or I coloured. Those elements nobly assist to give America her pre-eminence in j murder, but she could do without them, las might be fondly imagined. Fosdiek's report proudly claims that if all their excellent work was eminated, "Clod's Own Country" would still remain supreme in the practice of this art.' . Since the compilation of this report, which has no pleasing features for the average American, the statistic* must have leaped tremendously through the present crime wave which has engulfed the country of Uncle Sam. As it is, Chicago—well known as a hotbed of crime—has been ridiculing Xew York for becoming "hysterical' , owing to a wave of crime, for it is continuous in the Windy City, the latter admits smugly. "WILDER AND WOOLLIER." Slaven McXutt, a well known New York writer, after investigating the crime wave as it exists in Manhattan, said: "If Jesse James came to life to-day in New York city, he would have to work for a living. He was a good enough bandit in his day, but tinier have changed, and he would, find the present pace entirely too fast for his rustic nature.

"The flat fact is that Xew York at the present moment, is wilder and woollier than anything in literature or history dealing with the various frontiers 1 and boom camps of the early West, the far North or the Mexican border. "A man on Broadway or Fifth Avenue at midday is in greater danger of being robbed or killed by bandits than he would have been in any tough camp that ever existed on any frontier." The Xew York investigator then cites a few crimes that were committed in New York city within the previous forty-eight hours, so as to form a substantial part of the foundation of truth on which his foregoing "statement securely rested. Edwin W. Andrews, a jeweller, was shot to death in his office at 542, Fifth Avenue, at 2 o'clock on Thursday afternoon, by a gun equipped with a"Maxim silencer. The robbers took 550.090 worth of jewellery and escaped into the dense crowd that flowed through Fifth Avenue all during the commission of the crime. What happened there could happen in any other place in America's greatest street at any other time, commented McXutt. "A proprietor or clerk in a fashionable Fifth Avenue jewellery shop at midday is in as great peril as a lone rider convoying a shipment of gold on muleback down an isolated mountain trail through a country infested by road agents," added the New York writer.

Four geusts of the Hotel Astor were held up in their suite on the second floor at 8 o'clock on Wednesday evening, and McNutt commented: "If one mot aafe from violent robbery in onp's own suite on the second floor of th»> Hotel Actor, where in New York is safety'froni robbery and assault to be found? Probably any one of the city gaols would offer the greatest of protection. Apparently there are more dangerous criminals at liberty than in | gaols." I

; SHOT TO DEATH. i \t midnight on Thursday ni<rht Poiire Lieutenant Floyd Horton became suspicions of the occupants of ata.nob on Broadway at 146 th street He ordered the driver to halt. He was shot and mortally wounded. Writhing in the gutter from the ! agony of to death, he managed to dcsIcrV the license number 01 ihe fleeing machine and write it down. Also he managed to do a bit of shooting during hie death throes that accounted tor the life of his assassin, who was later found dead in a hall-way. Ihe machine was traced by the number written i>y the dying officer and the ban*ti apprehended along with their

woman accomplice. It seems to have been a case of a casual joy ride and liquor party at the end of which €he robbery of an apartment was casually suggested and accomplished as a bit o"f profitable entertainment as the climax to a pleasant evening. The prisons may be safe, but the courts are not. On Thursday night the safe in the office of the chief clerk of the Second District Municipal Court on 125 th street was blown open by expert cracksmen and looted of about $2,000. It is said that offenders against the law always return to the scene of the crime, but the odds, however, are against these criminals ever appearing in the court as defendants on trial. I On Friday morning an unidentified man was shot dead on the upper East Side. A woman was beaten and robbed in a cellar on the Upper West Side, and this all happened within forty-eight hours in New York City. * = GREAT ROUND-UP. , After being considerably puzzled with the extraordinary reign "of terror, the -New York authorities resolved to improve conditions, and the most sweeping roundup of crooks and suspicious characters in the city's history got into full swing by the police force of no less than 11,000 men, augmented by 4800 reserves. More than 150 persons were caught in the dragnet o n the first night. All those \ against whom no charge could be prored were ordered to take the first train out of town, and those failing to do so were soon in gaol for an indefinite period. New York. wa3 divided into zones, where special details delved into every nook and corner and ferreted out suspicious character?. Squads of police patrolled strategic points in the financial and shopping districts, and the crusade for the time lessened the criminal statist tics in Xew York. Citizens supplemented the work of the police, and the city -was aroused as never before. In Chicago, out of the thousands of shoppers tnronging State Street jurt around Christmas time, Stanley Zepeski, a purse-snatcher. chose Mrs. W. A. M3ddleton, aged 50, as a victim, but he did not know she was a teacher of phraieml culture. After demonstrating' a" few jiu-jitsu tricks and regaining her purse, Mr 3. Middleton surrendered him to tfi* police. Conditions were reversed in Lo» Angeles one day. when a fashionable party was travelling along in a highpowered motor-car. Another car swung along of* a similar type, and, getting on the running board, one of its occupant*, a stylishlvKiressed woman, brandished a revolver, compelled the first machine to halt, "and relieved all the party of their valuables. The woman rotiber and her accomplices made their "getaway" -without hindrance, as the victims were too astonished to raise an immediate outcry. "SHOTGUN" PATROL.* In another of the Pacific Coast States —Washington—something bordering * on martial law was enforced to cope wKa the lawlessness of the brigands. The civic police formed a "shotgun" patrol, with the object of Handling the hold-up men, who had been excessively active. The patrol, with sawtd-off* shotguns, loaded with buckshot, was a flying squadron, which answered, calls and chased hold-up men in an automobile. Some of the miscreants were accounted for, and were quickly sentenced to long terms in the penitentiary, one gang being interrupted as they were trying to escape with over 1000 dollars taken, from a safe in a garage. In Lo3 Angeles women compelled to be ; out at night or alone in their homes have i been afforded police protection after noti- ! fying headquarters. Chief of Police Lyle Pendersast ordered strict enforcement of the Curfew law, forbidding children under 16 years of age. from being ontdoors after 9 p.m. These regulations were put into force following attacks on two ytfinegirls by unidentified men, and an atta?K upon a> woman late one night. **^c Many of the people have already themseives against surprise visits by bandits, and men and women have been cautioned to remain off the streets after dark.