SHADOWED BY BLACKMAILERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8704, 18 August 1906, Page 7

SHADOWED BY BLACKMAILERS.

Th© legal position of Private James Hammond, of the 7th Hussars, who (.according to a Home journal, published about the middle of June) is now detained in Northampton Gaol, in company with Private Steel, on a charge of murdering a civilian named Arthur Hodges, is somewhat peculiar. Hodges, it vrao shown at the inquest, had been in the habit of shadowing lovers and blaokmailing them. He followed Steel and Hauiinond, who were out walking with two- girls, and it is alleged that they pursued and stabbed him. The coroner's jury exonerated Hammond, but the magistrates declined to be influenced by the verdict, and subsequently remanded both men in custody. Substantial bail was offered for both men, and it was intimated that the coroner had no objection to bail. The Magistrates were obdurate, however, and although the Public Prosecutor, it is said, has since offered no objection to Hammond being released on bail, the presiding Magistrate, Colonel Kawiins, declines to taka such a course. " Blackmailing is a lucrative profession for a large number of people," 6aid a well-known detective to a reporter. "There axe scores of blackmailers in the London streets to-day, but they are of various kinds. Broken-down solicitors and ex-bookmakers are two of the principal classes " from which come the blackmailers who do the most profitable business, but there are dozens of the loafers who pick up an uncertain living by blackmailing the working class. iTh© knowledge of a jealous wife is worth much to one of these people. Some small indiscretion on the part of a workman whioh ho has long^since repented and expunged from his conscience may cost' him many half-crowns and innumerable drinks. The loafing blackmailer tells him how he is starving, and hints at a repetition of the story to the victim's wife, and the triok is done. Besides this, it is 6a fe to say that at this time of year there is near London no open space free to the publio at night which does not harbour one blackmailer, and perhaps half a dosen. A scoundrel wearing a neckcloth follows a pair of sweethearte, say, on Wimbledon Common, and when in a lonely part calls the man aside and makes some kind of charge against him. For the sake of avoiding unpleasantness to his companion, tho man often pays the few shillings demanded. It is much the bettor plan to do as a dotootive friend did last summer to one of these fellows. He look him out iof the lady's sigjht, and then hit him hard on the point of the jaw. That blackmailer was in no condition for ■'further villainy that night."