SMUGGLERS FOILED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20365, 20 September 1929, Page 15

SMUGGLERS FOILED.

MURDEROUS WEAPONS.

SEIZURE IN SYDNEY

Au extraordinary collection of murderous weapons, intended, it is supposed, for uf>o in underworld gang warfare, was recently discovered by Sydney Customs officers who were searching mail matter from abroad for smuggled articles. In an innocent-looking cardboard box, sin. square by about an inch in height, the searchers found what one of them later described as "a complete blackguard's outfit—four knuckle-dusters, two of brass and two of steel, two heavy steel rings with jagged faces, capable of inflicting severe injuries and an ingenious folding bludgeon with a steel top and a steel spring handle. Any of the articles would have slipped easily into a man's waistcoat pocket. The goods were consigned from Scotland 'to a post office address in Sydney. Their importation into Australia. is forbidden by law, but although, steps have been taken to trace tho man to whom the articles were addressed it is considered unlikely that ho will be found. Weapons of this type are now seldom seen in Australia. Forty years ago, when rival "pushes," variously armed, fought for supremacy in Woolloomooloo, The Rocks and Surry Hills, knuckle-dusters arid faced rings were in fairly common use among larrikins and gangsters. Eventually the pushes" wero suppressed and with their passing such weapons grew'more and more uncommon until to-day they have become an object of curiosity.