PRINCES OF CRIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11872, 25 January 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

PRINCES OF CRIME.

THE AUTHOR OP THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS. Sir Robert Anderson, K.C.8., the recently retired Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard, contributes to the new Nineteenth Century an article on " How to put an end to Professional Crime." Here is a glimpse behind the scenes at Scotland Yard: — As day by day, and year by year, I used to study the " morning reports" of crime at Scotland Yard—and every crime of Greater London, with its 6,000,000 inhabitants, was reported to me—l found abundant proof, first, that the great mass of the people are honest and law-abiding, and secondly that professional crime is a clearly-defined element in the general crime of the metropolis, and that if it were eliminated property would be as safe in the suburbs of London as it is in rural England. The widely-cir-culated .advertisement of one of t]ie burglary insurance companies contains tfie startling statement that there are 70,000 thieves known to the police. As a matter of fact, there are not 70,000 names on the registers at Scotland Yard ; and yet these include criminals of every class, a large proportion of whom are dead and gone or in other ways withdrawn from the army of crime."

Incidentally the writer mentions that "the Whitecliapel fiend" of 1808 was discovered in a lunatic asylum. He also refers as follows to the Clerkenwell explosion of 1867: —

" Owing to sheer bungling a strong case very nearly broke down. All the guilty men escaped except Barrett, who was hanged; and his hanging, by the way, will always have an historical interest, as it was the last public execution in England. But even in Barrett's case Lord Chief Justice Cockburn began to entertain misgivings about the verdict, and came to the Home Office to suggest a respite. On that occasion, however, the production of a single document which could not have been, used at the trial completely satisfied both the judge and the Secretory of. State, and Barrett was left to his fate.''

Sir Robert tells t he following story of himself as a housebreaker: —

" I never realised what an amount of determination' and nerve it needs to break into a dwelling-house at night until I discovered my own deficiencies in these respects. On arriving at home one night after midnight I found I had forgotten my latchkey, and hieing unable to rouse the inmates I decided to enter burglariously. With a light heart I dropped into the area and attacked the kitchen window.' Such was the effect 011 my nerves of spending twenty minutes in that area that the sound of a constable's tread in the garden made me retreat into the coal-cellar. At last I was driven to break Clio- glass. It is extraordinary what a noise it makes to smash a pane of .glass when one does it deliberately; and the pas-sers-by. were attracted by'the sound.' As I had again taken refuge'in the cellar they could see nothing. As soon as they were gone it was an easy task to shoot the bolt, open the window, and scramble into the house."

" Speaking seriously and deliberately," the ex-Chief finally declares that " if not 70,000 but seventy known criminals were put out of the way the whole organisation of crime against property in England would-be dislocated,.'-'-