NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20259, 20 May 1929, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE DETECTION OF CRIME. Commenting on the return of criminal statistics for 1927 issued by the Home Office, the London Daily Telegraph emphasises the decline, in spite of an increase of population, in cases of homicide. "The very satisfactory downward tendency in the ratio of murders to population is no doubt largely attributable to the fact that the number of unsolved murder mysteries is rapidly approaching zero," it remarks. "Whatever their views on capital punishment, observers at home and abroad," says the introductory note to the return, "agree that the strongest deterrent of murder is the certainty that the murderer will be found out and dealt with. Notable instances of fine detective workare sufficiently recent to provide a ready commentary on the claim implied. Despito the gibes of many writers of detective stories, the public is by no means persuaded that the police detective is a slowwitted dullard. On the contrary, we have the best reason to know that our country possesses a personnel and an organisation for the detection of crime and the tracking down of the criminal which are unequalled in any part of the world. The public is well justified in feeling that the enemies of society have their match in our-vigilant police forco."

A GREAT HARBOUR BRIDGE. Within the next year the entire sky-line and street plan of Montreal will be changed by the completion of the new harbour bridge. This structure, which will be one of the largest in the Empire, is designed to meet the claims of the growing residential and industrial communities on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, and to accommodate the increasing traffic to and from the New England States of America. The main span will form the highest point of the bridge, being 162 ft above high water level over a span of 500 feet. The total fairway for ships is 1000 ft. and two 20,000 ton ocean liners can pass under the bridge. From this highest point the bridge gradually slopes to ttie south across the shallow part of the St. Lawrence and to the north over the shipping and business section of Montreal until it meets Sberbrooke Street, the main residential thoroughfare, over a mile from the river. The total length of the bridge will be over two miles, and it will carry a road accommodating four cars abreast, tramway tracks and footpaths. The construction of the bridge was expected to take fivo years, and to be finished in 1931. But as the contractors, who built the famous Quebec Bridge, are familiar with this typo of structure the work has proceeded with unexpected rapidity, and the bridge will be opened in May, 1930. -The Montreal Harbour Commissioners have launched a bond issue on the local market to cover the £2,300,000 needed for the construction of the bridge/ itself and tho £2,000,000 necessary for the purchase of land, legal fees, and other expenses. Tolls will be collected fyom automobiles and tho passengers they convey, and the Dominion Government, the Quebec Provincial Government, and tho municipality of Montreal will make good tho possible deficit in interest charges expected during the first five years of operation of the bridge. It is hoped that after six years a beginning can bo made with paying off the principal of the debt from the 101 l collected.