CRIMINAL GANGS

Evening Star, Issue 23882, 12 May 1941, Page 8

CRIMINAL GANGS

NOTORIOUS “ APACHES " OF PARIS ACTIVE IN CITY'S UNDERWORLD Apaches are on the warpath again—not along the wild trails of Arizona, but in the dark, crooked alleys of Paris, states the ‘ New York Times.’ The police of the occupied capital have banned the sale ot large clasp and hunting knives, the type the denizens of the city’s underworld know how to employ with deadly skill. It was the knihug affrays and other rough tactics of the Parisian toughs which, some 40 years ago, earned them their sobriquet. Emile Daisy, reporter for ‘Le Figaro,’ wrote a number of lurid stories about an outbreak of gang battles among various street bands ranging the crowded old slum quarters of Paris. He described one encounter between “the Sioux of Conqians Street” and “ the Pawnies (sic) of the Pre-Saint Gervais.” The most vicious group of cutpurses and ruffians he labelled “ the Apaches.” “PICTURESQUE SCOUNDREL.” At that time in Paris American In-, dian stories, particularly those of James Fenimore Cooper, were enjoying a vogue. The public adopted with gusto the name “ Apaches ” for the city’s underworld inhabitants. Although the Paris Apache was romanticised as a picturesque scoundrel in tight jacket and trousers, with cap on head, scarf around neck, cigarette dangling from lips, and swaggering female companion, he was really a dangerous and sordid bully. At night, looking for someone to waylay, he haunted Montmartre’s narrow streets. The Apache’s heyday was the preWorld War period. Then the most profitable tourists in Paris were the Russian aristocrats. A special tour of unclerworld dens was organised for their amusement; it was called “ La Tournee des Grands Dues.” After the World War came the American tourists. Thay had notions about the Apaches nurtured by Hollywood. Parisian guides now organised “ La Tournee des Americains.” DANCING AND FIGHTING. Pop-eyed school teachers and storekeepers from the American hinterland were escorted to the dives the Russian nobles had known. In the wine-reeking, ill-lit taverns they saw the ferocious Apaches drinking, dancing, fighting. Usually there would be a gaunt, individual sitting in a corner, furtively spilling white powder into his drink. The guides acted tense, assured everyone that they had police protection. But it was all a fake, a stageplay for the tourist. The dives split fees with the snides; the “ Apaches ” were harmless actors; the white powder was sugar, not cocaine.