SYDNEY’S UNDERWORLD

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16928, 30 December 1922, Page 13

SYDNEY’S UNDERWORLD

LIFE OF A CROOK. CRIME KINGS POSTURE GENTLEMEN. (Sydney “Sun.”) The underworld of Sydney is real. Tt revolves behind a smoke screen, but it’a there. It ha* its laws, jealousies, passions, depressions, revelries —but theyre all harsh and ugly. It doesn’t live. It just slinks along—a world with the frills of life discoloured and tattered. It’s a democracy, perhaps, but a very crude one. Its basis is tear and hate lte citizens tear and bate the police and fear and hate each other. Thev cling together and help each other not so much because there is honour among | crooks a? because they’re frightened. A crook knows that if he doesn't j give reasonable aid in a crisis he nia I oxpeet an early morning call—perhaps 1 a.m.—from a bunch of men with \ guns ready to squirt lead into him. ! Now and then a king of crooks springs up— from nowhere. He pulls j off a big job. fools the police, and j gets away with the dictatorship of tlie ; underworld. His coup is whispered ! about. A few strong men cluster i round him. The rest submit sullenly. He may be a square jawed man in i a scraggy flannel shirt, this King of the j Crooks —or he may be a smart-lookin ' fellow in three guinea boots and a 1 tailored suit. A DANGEROUS CRIMINAL, j Sydney had one ol the last type not | long ago. If a detective pointed him ! out to you in George Street, and told ! you that he was one of the most ; dangerous criminals in Australia, yon • would laugh. ! But it was no joke. This man worked some big senemes. At least. |he was suspected ot them. They | could never be traced to him. He i was too clever. j Finally the police interrupted his 1 daring career with a murder charge—i but he got out of it. Since then he I hasn't made much fuss. But the king ot the underworld 1 hasn’t much real power. He doesn’t i rule. He is not the man you see in j the films, sitting in an upholstered | chair in a lavish underground apart- ; uient hidden beside a subterrannean I canal, studying maps and flicking levers and pressing bell buttons, and dis- | patching gangs ot his henchmen, witn ! a dignified wave ol the hand, to all I corners of the city. : Sometimes he selects a crowd of the best men. and organises a big coup, j but not olten. He is king more ri name than anything. It’s simply tlia prestige of the thing. Duller stars blink at him in fearful respect—and the police watch him closely.

KNOWN TO THE POLICE. An amazing thing about this underworld is that every crook admits fhat he is a crook—sometimes he boasts about it. All the police know him and he knows all the police. You will often see a. detective nod cheerily to u safe-b:owor in the street?. They even stop to speak to each other. Hello, Jack! What are you doing here!- you 11 hear a detective say. And — “Oh. just keeping alive. Tom.” ‘‘The last time 1 saw you was is Adelaide. ’ ’ A es. I've just come over.” 'I bey re almost f.lends. The detective knows that this man is a thinkar and worker of the underworld. but ho can t put him in gaol. He can’t arrest a crook because he is a. croo’t. He must wait till he can lay spnve definite charge against him. Mean time, he i? civil. -yjr —' v THE DREGS OF CROOKDOM, Perhaps the most complete efforts !it underworld organisation in Sydney now are among tho park touts- the men who sneak on young couples in the dark and blackmail them. They have tho parks cut into section?. Two men go to each. Thev have boundaries and must not carry their operations past them. But the— men are the dregs. Th* real criminal? the ones who plan big robberic- and hold-ups sniff in disguob at them. They’re ostracised. Still, they’re part of the underworld this blurred, mysterious community of stealthy outlaws. A CROOK S ARGUMENT. In .• Surrey Oil!? gang there used to be a man who wouiu argue that crime was justified. At odd times he used to create conic good debates with the detectives. His argument was this : - It the principle ol buying ami selling i? lawful, he urges, so is crime. vJur code oi taws allows men to deal not only in concrete goods, but in abstract qualities, like time and risk. When you borrow -£IOO from a moneylender and pay him back in twelve months witn ,C 6 as interest, you are paying him that £6 tor the lane lie lias marie available to you. He has marie it possible for you to have 4-100 a year earlier than you could have had it otherwise —-therefore lie is selling you time. It’s the same with insurance companies when thev insure your house against fire, thev’re dealing in risk. Now burglary have risks. The loot they get is the payment. And the two are a 1 way's evenly balanced- - the bigger the risk the bigger the payment. It’s lair enough. If a man run? the risk of gaol or losing his life, isn’t he entitled to the le ward ? But lie could not convince the detectives. Nor the magistrates. De spite all his arguments, he’s been in gaol three time?. The thing lie overlooked was that 1 f fires were not natural occurrences in tho scheme of thing?, and insurance men deliberately set out to start them, so they they could create a risk to deal in, they would be in gaol. too.