GLASGOW REIGN OF TERROR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18626, 23 July 1930, Page 5

GLASGOW REIGN OF TERROR.

GARROTING AND RAZOR SLASHING. GIRLS AS “QUEENS'' OF GANGS. The revival of the death penalty and flogging were suggested by Lord Alness at the close of the High Court, in Glasgow (says the Glasgow correspondent of the “Weekly Post”), as drastic remedies for the gang terror which has held the city of Glasgow in jts grip for the past few years. The city has seldom been confronted with a more difficult problem than that which confronts if to-day in the gang menace, with its hideous concomitants of razor slashing, garroting, and rioting. The comparatively trivial penalties which the law permits for these offences has had the effect of allowing the disease to spread throughout the working-class districts of the city unchecked, and to-day Glasgow is the most gang-ridden city in Britain. Not before it is time have the authorities awakened to a realisation of the extent of the evil.

Sequel to Stabbing Affray. A recent tragedy, when a youth w r as stabbed to death in a gang quarrel, aiM for which a twenty-year-old youth was sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude for culpable homicide at the High Court, has at last brought the searchlight of public opinion to bear on this terrible canker, and moved by a spontaneous determination on the part of the citizens to tolerate the evil no longer, the authorities have taken steps to stamp it out ruthlessly. The magistrates of the city have declared their intention to seek new legislation to enforce heavier penalties on offenders, and Lord Alness’s suggestion that flogging should be resorted to has been promised serious consideration. They are impatient with a law which permits only • a sentence of a few months’ imprisonment on gangsters, and are firmly determined to take extreme measures to rid Glasgow of a disease which has held her name up to shame. Traitors Terrorised. That drastic measures are needed to deal with the problem is clear from the fact that the gangs number hundreds. Systematic organisation of these gangs is one of their worst features. Most of them have a juvenile branch recruited from boys just left school, and they are subjected to a rigorous discipline which makes desertion impossible. If a boy deserts he does so at the peril of his life, and at the very least he is bullied, pestered and assaulted by ! the gang as a traitor. The gang tyrants have a greater influence over the gangster than the law or his parents. Many a story is told of respectable parents heartbroken because their sons have been caught up in the tentacles of a gang. The boy would rather leave home than desert his gang, and his parents have helplessly to watch him degenerate into a thug and rioter, with prison as his inevitable fate. The police have the greatest difficulty in securing a conviction against gangsters because of the terror which haunts the informer. Has to Flee Abroad. The danger to the boy who blabs to the police is such that he has to leave the town and even go abroad. Only then is he safe from the sinister attentions of the tyrants. Fights between rival gangs are the most dangerous aspect of the gang system.

It is a point of honour with every gangster to take up the cudgels on behalf of a fellow member for a real or imaginary grievance. Fights are frequently planned well beforehand, and the gangs give each other notice of the battle.

Victory is to the better armoured, and there is consequently keen competition for securing the most deadly weapons. As the senior magistrate demonstrated at the High Court when he produced a home-made dagger, the gangster will not stop at manufacturing his own weapons. Old files or chisels are ground down to make serviceable daggers when the gangsters havq not the means to procure the real thing.

Razors are also the most popular weapons in the gang armoury, and razor-slashing offences have become a serious menace in the city.

In most cases the gangs have a following of girls, the most popular of whom is often appointed “queen.” The “queen” has only to complain of the most trifling outrage against her dignity, and the gang sets out immediately to revenge the insult. So ruthless are the gangs in the pursuit of their foes that picture house managers and shopkeepers whose establishments they frequent are terrorised. By a system of blackmail cinema managers and shopkeepers have frequently to pay a levy to one gang to protect them from the persecution of another.

This levy is often exacted to pay the fine of a member of the gang who has been convicted, or to provide bail money. Within the past few years several fatalities have been brought home to gangs, including two proved murders, while assaults and razor-slashing offences are too numerous to mention. Only the most ruthless legislation can deal with the menace, and Glasgow has at last determined to get it.