Gallant Criminals

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 165, 15 July 1939, Page 9 (Supplement)

Gallant Criminals

BULLDOG A R T H U R," known to the police as Arthur John Cox, is back behind bars. He was sentenced at the Old Bailey to four years' penal servitude. The sentence means six years. He has still two years' "ticketof-leave" to serve. < Sentenced with him was James Horn. "Flash Dickie." The pair's" criminal partnership was established in schoolboy days. Horn received three years' penal servitude. Both pleaded guilty to breaking and entering , and, according to the stories told, old-time highwaymen were no more gallant than this precious pair. Cox told one woman Into whose bedroom he tiptoed in oarly morning: "We don"t propose to hurt you. lady. Just show us where your jewels are." Horn told one of hi* women victims: "Don't he alarmed." He kissed her hand after robbing her. -Bulldog Arthur" and "Flash Dickie" started their criminal way as mastermind jjnd lieutenant of a children's jrang which terrorised East End of London shopkeepers. Borstal sentences, prison ■ sentences, and various penal servitude terms broke up the partnership periodically, but whenever the pair teamed behind bars or outside, trouble followed. After his release from Borstal, Cox was a "cow nurse" on cattle boats, and a deckhand with North Sea fishing "trawlers. From the former he gathered the ideas of the worst haunts of Rio and Buenos Ay res. A 12 ninths' sentence at Gloucester Prison in 1921 for housebreaking preceded his acquaintance with Dartmoor in 1923. Here the "Bulldog" renewed acquaintance with a boyhood friend, Guy Browne, slayer of Constable Gutteridge. On August 7, 1924, he led the sensational "Bog Break," the biggest escape plot in British convict prison history. Planned for months, the escape was to be general by men working in the bogs and quarries during dinner. But "Bulldog" made his dash before the prearranged signal. Four others followed, and the five broke through the

guards. The rest of the gangs were lined up at carbine point. Four of the fugitives were captured within a few hours. "Bulldog" was the last to surrender. He held off his armed pursuers using granite boulders as ammunition. Six months' "canary dress"—loss of six months' remission, and the wearing of the hideous black and yellow garb of an escapee, solitary confinement and bread and water for a lengthy period— was Cox's sentence. Following a brief spell of liberty after the sentence "Bulldog" returned to Dartmoor for three years, for burglary and possession of a pistol. On hie release he again met Horn. Their association ended at the Old Bailey in October, 1930, when he received ten years' penal. Horn at the next, sessions received three years. The pair had been engaged on an extensive robbery tour in the London suburbs. Both were armed, used fast

cars and utilised country barne an " stablee as repositories for their stpko. proceeds. A constable hiding in a hedgerow el Woking watched Horn drive up to ov.? of the "caches." The officer pounced < n him, and Horn drew a pistol, but it discharged harmlessly. "Bulldog" was challenged by a poli-- , - sergeant at Lee, in the early hours of the morning. His answer was a fusillp le of revolver shots at point-blank He was finally cornered in a garden. At his trial he declared: "My one object when I come out will be to ehoot policemen." Cox was in solitary confinement in a special strong cell when the mutlnv burst over Dartmoor. Confederates released him. Horn wae one of the ringleaders. At the Princetown trial he received 21 months' consecutive imprisonment. Cox was transferred, to Parkhivrst after tthe mutiny to become the "terrar" of the island gaol.