CRIME INVASION.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 May 1924, Page 4

CRIME INVASION.

O LONDON, l-'eb. ]<>. Criminologists will watch with in-tero-t the result of Scotland Yard's plan to prevent the victimisation of visitors to London during the coming big season. While many trades are getting ready to welcome the large number of \i .; t» who life expected, the police are .. keenly engaged in taking steps to prev at the arrival of unwelcome visitors. The mas;.-.- minds of the criminal world—in.-ii ;.bi possess unenviable reputations as ini *ruuliniial thieves and trickster-—are not easily baulked. Will they evolve from their nimble brains a sidiem- that will end in unlawful triumph* over the unwary;-' That is a question many people are asking to-day. Afeu and women who aspire to gat In r the “plum*" of the criminal world an- cf iniiuile resource and ■ hiring. No men know this better than those who are daily engaged in the at tempi to frustrate their activities and place them behind prison bars. And as a result the preparations which are being made to check a wholesale invasion of England by the world’s “lie-t" crooks are the result of great thought and knowledge. For months past the overseas mail lias regularly brought to Scotland Yard tile records and photographs of in n and women notorious in the criminal world abroad who are likely to attempt to reach London. All this information has been carefully tabulated. .Many of the new additions to the ■Rogues’ Gallery” do not hear the stamp of criminality on their faces. The successful criminal and his women associates are peolpe who can

carry themselves creditably in almost any.society. And it is because or this fact that they arc successful. The charm and beauty of the woman criminal are her chief asset in ensnaring victim- into the net of her male companion'-. lieauty and deceit are often twins. Scotland Yard lias its quota of smart, debonair men who can disguise the fact that they are criminal hunters. And it is between the smart types of the two callings that tho great battle of wits is to be fought.