STREET OUTRAGES.

Otago Witness, Issue 879, 3 October 1868, Page 13

STREET OUTRAGES.

(London Times.)

We drew attention a short time ago to the increasing prevalence of street outrages. If any of our readers have been induced in consequence to notice the police reports more closely, they will not have been reassured. Looking back since the beginning of last week, we find nearly two dozen cases of robbery with violence in the public streets. There are now + wo or three such outrages almost every day, and on one day there were as many as five. It will be worth while to give a few specimens. A woman was waiting for an omnibus in the Whitechapel Road at 11 at night, when a man ran against her, knocked her back, and snatched her gold chain and watch. He then gave her a blow on the chest, and seized her waistband, which was fastened with a gilt buckle. A young girl, 16 years old, was walking with her sister in the Borough at noonday, when three young lads seized her from behind, tore off her chain and locket, and ran away. • Only one of them was caught. The Police said the prisoner belonged to a daring gang who styled themselves " The "Kent street Forty Thieves," and who were a terror to the neighbourhood, similar robberies occurring daily. At nine o'clock in the evening, in the Old Kent road, a woman and her husband were hustled and kicked by a similar gang, and she was robbed of her purse. The next day a man was charged with assaulting a woman in Victoria Park in the morning, knocking her down, robbing her, and criminally assaulting her. Two other men were concerned in the assault, but had escaped. In Southwark road, between 9 and 10 in the evening, a woman who was carrying a bundle was knocked down by two men, one of whom seized her bundle and got off. The poor woman was suffering so severely from the injuries she received, that she was unable to lie down. The next day a gentleman was walking home at nine o'clock in the evening with his wife in Bartholomew-close, when two men dashed at him and seized his watch and chain. Later in the evening, three women and two men assaulted an old gentleman who was walking to his hotol in Norfolk street, , Strand, knockedhim down, and robbed him of his watch. One of a gang rushed suddenly at a timekeeper in the employ of the South-Eastern Railway, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, in the Great Dover Road, seized his watch, and threw it to, his. confederates, who all escaped. At halfpast ten the same evening the hall-keeper at Astley's Theatre was similarly as-, saulted. Another person was robbed of, his wafcoh and chain, as he waa getting into i an omnibus at the Elephant and Castle. This person ran after the thief and seized him, but was violently kicked and bitten. There was a similar case the ! next day in the neighbourhood of Fleet ' street ; ,and five lads were brought up for systematic robbery in Tottenham Court road and Oxford street. The next day two men were brought up for violent watoh robberies at two railway stations. Another gentleman was robbed of hia watch at 7 o'clock in the morning. This was last week's work. On Monday morning in this week our report opens with a watch robbery, perpetra'ed with great brutality on amagistrate, at 6 o'clockin the

evening, on London bridge. Itwascommit* ted by four men, of whom only two were in custody. There was another case the same day. On Tuesday we reported four outrages in different parts of the town, one of them being accompanied with great violence. On Wednesday we reported two fresh cases of violence, and another robbery is reported this morning. A letter, moreover, in our columns the day before yesterday forms no slight addition ' to this catalogue. A gentleman tells us that his wife and mother, whom he expected home at nine o'clock last Sunday evening, arrived instead, at midnight, "faint, bruised, bleeding, and robbed." The Lea- bridge Sta- • tion of the Great Eastern Railway had after dark that evening been in possession of a gang of thieves, who hustled, robbed, and insulted the passengers with impunity.

This brief summary of the recorded history of the streets of London during a single week is certainly somewhat startling. We have never encouraged any feeling of insecurity respecting London life. We have believed and maintained that there is no city, and even no country, in which a man might go about with more safety than in London, provided he were moderately observant and discreet. But we confess this daily catalogue of outrages somewhat disturbs our confidence. It seems that day after day, at all hours, in public thoroughfares and at railway stations, men and women can be violently assaulted and robbed as effectually as if they were on a lonely moor, in regions where policemen are unknown. Such offences as we have quoted are simply the highway robbery of former times practised under different circumstances. The adage that a great ci y is a great solitude receives a new illustration from such occurrences. There can be no doubt that in the crowd, the business, and the activity of a London street, a sudden and bold assault may be successful before either the victim or the bystanders have time to realise what is passing, while the thief has the best faculties for escape in the labyrinth of the neighbouring streets and alleys. The criminal classes seem to have discovered the power of audacity and rapidity, and to be everywhere trying the effect of their invention. The reader will observe that nearly all these assaults are of the same character. The criminal rushes a,t a person or hustles him, makes a snatch at hia chain, disconcerts him, if necessary, by a sudden blow, and makes off with his watch. In many cases the victim is so startled that the thief is lost in 'the crowd before he can be even identified. It is a plan bolder, simpler, and more easily practised than garotting, and for the moment it appears proportionately in favor with the criminal class.

Special forms of crime rise up from time to time, and have a kind of " run ;" but this is a particularly dangerous and mischievous sort of outrage. It is one against which it is impossible to guard, and before a man knows himself in danger he may be seriously injured by a blow, to say nothing of the loss of his property, which is a comparatively trifling matted. Some strenuous efforts should be made to restrain this new outbreak of the London "roughs." So far as the police have any power of surveillance over the criminal classes they may properly exercise it with the utmost strictness at such a time. But we suppose the weakness of our law in this direction will render all such exertions inadequate to the occasion, and that we must rely on the deterrent effect of punishment. We are glad to see the magistrates are committing prisoners of this class to trial, and i we trust that when they are convicted, the j Judges will visit them with adequate sentences. Garotting was effectually put down, in this way, and a few exemplary punishments will have a similar effect in checking the present epidemic of crime. We are glad to see that the two boys who murderously assaulted an old woman in the City soma time ago were severely sentenced yesterday at the Central Criminal Court. The , fact of two young boys, not belonging to the regular criminal class, having been incited to such an outrage affords a painful instance of the tendency of crimes of I violence to spread. Criminals, however, are capable of a keen calculation of consequences, and when a particular form of crime is punished with systematic severity, they prudently avoid an unnecessary risk. There are no crimes for which severe sentences are more justifiable. Violent outrages on the person are offences against the first law of society, and the instinct of self preservation justifies us in retaliating promprly and sternly. Meanwhile, the puMic must beon their guard, and the police might keep, at least, a stricter eye on all suspected persons whom they may observe in the streets. It will be a disgrace to our capaoity for administration if we do not promptly restore the streets of London totheir customary security.