AMERICAN BOMB-THROWER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15557, 14 March 1914, Page 2 (Supplement)

AMERICAN BOMB-THROWER.

MURDER DONE FOR 1 4s.

"BLACK HAND" CRIMES.

Mtjedeb,, bomb-throwing, and abduction of girls were amongst the crimes which a mild-mannered young man admitted last month, whilst he coolly, and at times cynically, exposed the workings of the "Black Hand" gang in New York. The new police -organisation is trying to "make New York as clean as London," and it is recognised that this ambition, cannot ne achieved until the gangs which exist in the city for the purpose of violence and crime are suppressed.

The witness referred to is Alfred Lehman, who, although only 24, is a selfconfessed bomb-thrower, incendiary, and murderer. He gave evidence partly to secure immunity for himself and partly because he is now anxious to reform. Lehman admitted that he was a bomb specialist, and had been connected with thirty-three explosions, several of which entailed fatal results. Here is a price list of assorted crimes summarised from his remarkable evidence :—lncendiarism, New York, £30 ditto, Brooklyn, £25: murder of a Chinaman, 4s; bomb, Rivington Street, £10; bomb, Prince Street, £6; bomb, East 12th Street, £5 abduction of girls, £10; bomb, West 41st Street, £15; bomb, Washington Street, £6; horsestealing, £5; bomb 'to scare strikers, £15. . From the standpoint of Hue anatomy and psychology of crime Lehman's frank confessions, it i» admitted, have more than a passing interest. " How long have you been a thief ?" he was asked. "Since I was seven years old. I guess I was born a thief." "Did you ever steal horses?" "Oh, yes. I have been in many burglaries and stolen anything that was loose at any time of the day or night. I have been in the State reformatory and other prisons, and what I did not know about crime I picked up there." The latter sentence deserves emphasis, because by common consent the State reformatory in New York provides a post-graduate course in crime'. Bald-headed Jack Rose, the' gambling-house keeper, whose companions sent a New York police superintendent to gaol, and others, have all sworn that novices in vice were further contaminated by association with the inmates of the reformatory, and that youngsters whose education in crime was only partial were fully instructed before they left. Lehman confessed that bomb-throwing was an easy way to earn money. The gang generally worked on the fears of small shopkeepers of foreign originItalian for preferenceby letter, by telephone, and finally by putting a little bomb m a place where it would not do much harm, "just to show we meant business," Lehman added. " Then we would give him another chance, and if he still did not pay we would" wreck his house. Generally, however, after the first bomb he was so scared that ha would send money. Here is a funny thing," he interposed, a cynical smile curling his straight lips: "Nearly every man we got money, out of would tell us of some other man who was making money and out of whom we could scare money with a bomb. He seemed to envy the escape of some rival in business, and thought he could square himself with us'by telling on his friend."

"We did a good deal of business for other people," continued Lehman. "A man would come to us and say he would give .us some money, maybe £10, maybe £20, to blow up his rival in business. You make a special bomb for that. It is made out of lead pipe and filled with slugs'of metal that have been soaked in poison; so if you- get a wound from that it will kill you."