MOB GAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 214, 8 September 1921, Page 7

MOB GAS.

POLICEMEN IN TEARS. In Philadelphia lately a small com,pany of privileged observers looked on at a spectacle new in the history of nian--1 kind—two hundred policemen in tears. If a strong man overpowered bj' emotion is a terrible thing to witness, this would have been two hundred times as painful but for the spectators' knowledge that anguish was not gnawing as those gallant hearts, and that the only discomfort they were suffering was a slight and I temporary physical unease, poludtarily I endured. It, was, in fact, the occasion of the trial of Major de_ la Noys' lachrymatory gas method for the. repelling of mobs and criminal gangs; the police authorities of Philadelphia having decided to submit it to the searching test of using it to stop the rush of a 1 large body of healthy and determined ' constables', naturally interested in dis- ■ crediting a device which would tend to i lower the value of muscular manhood for the preservation of the peace. The victory was to science; for the grenades, hurled by five army veterans, burst in the path of the charge and utterly broke it. Bathed in tears, the police I renewed tho assault again and again, ; only to -be driven back yet more copiously weeping. They had Major de la Noys' assurance that the gas was "not dangerous, but merely tear-prmlueinET, choking, and nauseating"; yet they were ! unable to face it. The law, it would j seem, disposes of a new and effective I weapon against disorder in Philadelphia; the trouible is that the wrongdoer is as likely as the man in authority to foe impressed with the value of the device. Policemen dealing with resolute criminals, of the type that calls in science to the aid of felony, may yet have roa=on to think unthankfu'ly of Maior de la Noys and his gas. There is i usua'ly a catch in these «good thin<rs; and it is too probable that such technical experts as the counterfeiter and the ' safe-blower, if they took up the idea, ' would not be so particular about the harmlessnese of their chemical", and would better the Major's instruction.