A GANGSTER SPEAKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 293, 11 December 1929, Page 9

A GANGSTER SPEAKS.

UNDERWORLD CODE BROKEN. MURDER DEVELOPMENT. IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December G. It may be taken for granted that the underworld feud which for so many years has been a blot on the life of Sydney, reached a definite end this w-eek in a ward at St. Vincent's Hospital, for a member of the two general gangs between which the warfare has bean raging, broke down the code of the underworld—"Thou shalt not squeal"—and identified a man who he said shot him in an underworld encounter a few weeks ago.

It has always been a police problem in these cases to get the wounded man to talk. Scores of instances are on record where police have been certain who fired the shot, but when the victim refused to identify him, and other witnesses were too scared to speak, their hands have been tied. And so the shootings and razor-slash-ings have continued for years without the law being able to take its course. The rock on which the feud breaks is the Dalton case. Barney Dalton, companion of the gangsters, was shot dead in William Street, ' Darlinghurst, and Walter Tomlinson and another man were wounded. Frank Green, reported to be the gunman, disappeared, and it was common talk that even if police found his hidingplace, it would be of no avail, for Tomlinson would be "solid," and would refuse to identify him. Consequently, when Green was arrested on a charge of murder this week—taken from a hut in the scrub at Cronulla—it occasioned only mild interest amongst his companions. "That's the Man." . Green himself did not seem upset. He asked to be taken before his accusers. In due course he was taken to St. Vin- | cent's Hospital, where Tomlinson lies ' critically ill, with two bullets in his body. To the amazement of everyone present, excepting, of course, the police who got the statement, Tomlinson's dying depositions were read out. In them he said that Green shot Dalton and himself. He made no bones about it. When the police paraded Green before him and asked whether this was the Green who shot him, he said: "Yes, that's the man!" To say that this action and statement have caused a sensation is to describe the facts verv poorly, for the whole basis of general safety in these underworld feud* has been that no one will tell the police .anything. In effect, the code has been that it is a private fight, outside the law, and in no other instance has the code been broken. Since this instance, however, many members of both gangs whose allegiance was held only because of their fear of the consequences, have come to the police with amazing stories. Sifted down, these throw the blame for all the trouble to the two undisputed "queens" of Sydney's lower life, one in each opposing camp, between whom there is the deadliest hatred. It means, fortunately, a break-up of the feud, and the terrorism that has held for so-many years is ended.