GANGSTERS IN GLASGOW

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 6 January 1930, Page 8

GANGSTERS IN GLASGOW

“SLASHERS. GOUGERS AM) SMASHERS.”

Chicago oil the Clyde is a. new name given to Glasgow by resentful tradesmen suffering from the blackmailing campaign of the city street' gangs (writes James Dunn in the “Daily Chronicle’ ’).

The season of feuds and forays has now begun. There have been fights over girls in dance halls, and bottle-, throwers knd razor-slashers are appearing in the docks as heroes. A really good 1 Kittle-thrower is almost as valuable as a third-rate professional football player, for the Glasgow gangs have a transfer system similar to that existing in Association football. When a feud is ripe for development champion smashers, gougers and slashers are bought for as much as £2O a head. Money to pay for these “transfers’’ is provided hy small .shopkeepers and publicans, who pay a weekly levy of 2s and more to keep their premises intact. When “■subscriptions’’ are overdue a hint is conveyed by a brick through the window. OUT-OF-WORKS. These street gangs, which are known bv such pieturesoue titles as “The Nudie 80y.5." “the Pikers.” “The! Kelly Boys,” and “The Billy Boys.” are composed of youths aged from 17 to 22 years who are professional out-of-works.

While fights among the different gangs draw attention to their nnsavonrv existence, they are really formed to provide for their members a living- without working. Pilfering, e-ambling- and robbing tradesmen by blackmail, they are a menace, to the ordered life of the city, particularly in Bridgeton and Govau. Shopkeepers aye afraid to appeal to the police because of the threat of reprisals; and the police themselves are handicapped in their crusade against the gangs by the strict code which prevents a member of one gang from giving information against any member of a .rival gang. Each gang has its “Queen,” with her flapper attendants, and since the “female of the species” has introduced her abbreviated skirts into the fights and fends the gangs have become holder in violence and more resourceful in tactics. SWEARING-IN RECRUITS.

Recruits to the gangs are obtained by voluntary enlistment- or by intimidation. Boys from respectable homes are persuaded or forced to join their local gang, and made to swear fearsome oaths. Idleness and street associations are the direct causes of the increase in gang membership. Stipendiary Smith frequently warns parents of the danger in allowing their young boys to sell chewing gum and chocolates at football .grounds, where they meet the scum of the streets. Thousands of Glasgow children are learning evil in the school of the streets.

Every- night the main thoroughfares of the city contain companies of’child beggars, who with cupped hands and whining voices,solicit alms. These child beggars have the professional manner. They are of the type recently seen , at' Bow. Street [ where "Mr- Herbert, the .coiiff'.rniy-sioh-arv. remarked that it waft a common practice' for provincial beggars to’’pay their railway fares to London for the purpose of exploiting the charitable. Bred in crowded slum tenements, these children of the poor have little chance to escape the dangers and temptations of the streets. Their heroes are the bullying captains of the gangs, their inspiration inter-gang fights, and their ambition to lead a life of exciting and profitable idleness.