CRIME
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN “ Out of every forty-two persons in the United States,” said Mr Courtney Eyley Cooper in one of a number of crime books that have appeared recently, “ one is either a convict, an exconvict, or possessed of a police record of arrest.” In the files of the Identification Unit of the Division of Investigation are about 4,800,000 sets of finger-prints taken from arrested men and women. Out of these are ten thousand hardened criminals, for whose capture police officers must have machine guns, automatic rifles, and perhaps tear-gas guns in order to be properly armed for the battle which may follow. These are America’s Public Ijpemies. They include the criminal murderers as differentiated from those who have slain in passion; kidnappers, vicious extortioners, confirmed bank robbers and hold-up men. Each of these ten thousand has from two to a dozen infractions of the most vicious nature recorded against him. Fortunately England does not heed machine guns and tear-gas. The Sidney street affair in 1911 was England’s only real “ battle.” But even then, apparently. not all the police were armed.
Even in London’s most historic “ siege ” —the criminals blazed away for nearly seven hours against the hundreds of police and soldiers—the casualties were very few, only five injured and one fireman killed by falling debris after the besieged house had caught fire. NO GOOD IN THE STATES The United States has had dozens of Sidney street affairs. Nevertheless, Mr Cooper says that much of the outcry for an “ American Scotland Yard ” is “ just so much flimflam.” In a year, he goes on, Scotland Yard does not face the dangers, the difficult cases, the congregated crime' and complexity of infractions which the New York department must overcome in a single month. Transplant Scotland Yard to New York, using Scotland .Yard methods, personnel* and experience, and within a week the Empire State Building would be stolen piece by piece and gangsters would be setting up shooting galleries and using “ bobbies ” for targets at three shots for a nickel. But all this, he adds, is written in no disparagement of Scotland Yard. “With all deference to a fine old police institution, Scotland Yard has had .practically no experience whatever with the American type of vicious lawbreaker, -and would no more know how to capture a John Dillinger than it could recite the Koran.” What would Mr Nicholls have to say to this? What America needs, we are told, is not a Scotland Yard, but a power like that which rests behind Scotland Yard, a freedom from political pressure, courts which dispense justice instead of pandering to the tricks and gags of charlatan attorneys, plus prisons which keep the criminal there after they get him. American inefficiency in this respect is almost unbelievable. According to Mr Cooper, America has got all the “Scotland Yard” it wants in the Division of Investigation, which is attached to the Department of Justice, and directed by a serious-looking man of forty named J. Edgar Hoover. The division seems to have the most up-to-date methods. 1 In a ivcent kidnapping case, says Mr Cooper, all they had to work oh was a general description of a man and the fact that his nickname was “ Cotton.” In their files of nickname an official found that there were more than fifty: “Cottons.” This did not bother him at all. He proceeded to another file which contained a corresponding number of oblong cards, dotted by figures, and each containing punch marks, each hole denoting a detail of description. He took the cards to a queer-looking machine, consisting of several drums from which jutted numerous small adjustable knobs. THE CARD DROPS OUT. He set these knobs—one for sex, another for age, height, weight, colour of hair, and so on:— Then he put all the cards into the machine and pressed the button. Instantly the, main number of identifications began to drop into a bin beneath the machine, rejected by those carefully set knobs. The second bin remained empty, until at last a single card .fell there. It was the one which denoted the particular “ Cotton ” wanted by Special Agents. Now they could look up his real name, his photograph, and his finger-prints. Even when the criminal is safely behind the bars, he seems to stand a good chance of getting free again long before his. time. Even ( the man who gets a life sentence, we read, knows that his chance of serving his whole sentence is not, one in a thousand. Paroles, writes Mr Cooper, run to an enormous figure. The pardons are almost as numerous. Christmas and Thanksgiving send- a perfect flood of murderers, bank robbers, thieves, cut-throats, and all-round brigands back to their old lives of law breaking. It is not at all unusual for a man serving a long term to recieve a sixtyday furlough of freedom upon nothing more than an application citing “ business reasons.” For that matter, in another State three men who were serving long terms as thoroughly desperate criminals got time off to . go fishing—and they didn’t come back. England may not have such desperate rascals as the United States, but she can offer some good examples of the picturesque. Take that humorist, for instance, who adopted the preposterous name of “ D. S. Windell. ’ With the assistance of a friend, who was cashier in a bank, he evolved an ingenious scheme for making money. He-took a taxicab and made a tour of thirteen of the bank’s South London branches. True, be got cold feet before the last. At each he called for the manager and introduced himself as “D. Stanley Windell,” and asked if an advice had been received at the branch transferring £726 to his credit. Yes, the advice bote had arrived. He gave the manager his specimen signature and ,it tallied with that from the other branch from which the account had been transferred. Formalities over, Windell called for a cheque-book and drew out £29o—two hundred in “ fivers ” and the remaining £9O in golden sovereigns.
And so he went on, always getting away with the same amount. At last, however, he became suspicious of the cabby, and ordered him to drive to the head office in Lothbury. He marched in through the front door and out at the back He had even bilked the taximan! But the police soon got him.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Star, Issue 22086, 20 July 1935, Page 19
Word Count
1,059CRIME Evening Star, Issue 22086, 20 July 1935, Page 19
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