SYDNEY’S RAZOR GANG.

Otago Witness, Issue 3854, 24 January 1928, Page 17

SYDNEY’S RAZOR GANG.

EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCES (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January ..3. Hie razor gang of Sydney is beginning to demand as much, space in .he newspapers as the gunmen of Melbourne were getting some time back. This is a new form of criminal amusement, and there have been quite a number of victims. Usually the razor-slashing gang selects Darlinghurst as its field of operations, and some of the cases are of an extraordinary character. The other night a young woman lumeG Betty Carslake was slashed with a razor by a man who knocked a l , her flat in King s Cross road, Darlinghurst. Why ? One account says that it was simply because she had refused to encourage the advances of a young man had attempted to make to her on several occasions when she passed him in the street. This made him so angry that, having found out where she lived, he called at her flat, and when she opened the door he slashed her with a razor across her face. Lut the razor-slashing as a general thing seems to be a matter of com p.iments. between rival gangs. In a..y case it is time the police put an end In the last two or three months the police are said to have arrested something like 60 men with razors in their possession, though it does not follow ot course, that they all had sinister intentions. There is nothing to prevent a man carrying a razor about with him. Ihe case is different with firearms. The Daily Guardian, gives a list of halt a dozen serious cases of razor-slashing that have occurred .in Sydney. “ A Weapon of the American negro, the razor, is having a vogue in Sydney which is spreading terror throughout the community, it says, “and a demand is now made for a penalty which will he'p to stamp out its use.”

The paper set out to ascertain the views or more or less prominent citizens on the subject, but only one or two -were willing that their names should be published? The others were afraid they might be marked down for attention if they dared to express any opinions. Apart from a couple of highly-placed police officials, the only man who had the courage to allow his name to be used was the Rev Hugh Paton, who said : “ The use of the modern razor is reverting to the pre historic methods of vengeance. I don t think a long gaol sentence helps any. These people are a menace to society, and I think the lash would check them bravado.”

The others who were interviewed included < a city property investor, wiio said: “Flogging is the only thing, and the sooner the better, *’ a real estate agent, who said the only effective deterrent, short of hanging, was flogging ; and a city solicitor, who said: “ I would give a man convicted of razor-slashing six months without the option and a flogging for the first offence; a second offence would merit two years and a flogging every three months.”