TRIBUNAL OF TERROR

Evening Star, Issue 20137, 30 March 1929, Page 5

TRIBUNAL OF TERROR

CRS3KS' CWH COURT SOME OF ITS SECRETS Most people know there are special courts for tho trial of solicitors, doctors, and clergymen, hut few arc aware that criminals also have a court to which they summon those of their fraternity who have “ erred professionally,” writes an cx-police inspector of London. A criminal found guilty, with no extenuating circumstances, is in the same position as an unfrocked clergyman, or a doctor whose name has been erased from the medical register. He is barred from following his profession. .1 f tlier j are extenuating circumstances he ia;iv ho “reduced.-” A burglar becomes an ordinary _ -sneak thief; a high-grade confidence trickster an ordinary three-card swindler, and so on. The period of reduction, for some superstitious reason, is for seven or eleven months. DRUMMED OUT. In return for a kindness to a crook ho arranged for 1110 to see one of the courts at work The court, called a “Tot.” from tho first letters of the phrase “Try Our Traitors.” was hold, with the connivance of the somewhat shady landlord of a public house, in a R.A.0.8. Lodge, Tho judge, dh> guised. but whom I believed to bo a wealthy “ fence,” sat in the PrimoV seat. The lighting bad been so arranged that he and the others present—about twenty—wore in semi-darkness and the accused in full light. The first charge was of concealing a stolen diamond ring and selling it “ r.P.”—to a private person. It was a ease of two burglars working together and one failing to hand over all he had taken. In judicial tones the judge spoke of the necessity of honour and of tho danger of selling “ P.P.” The sentence was “ Eleven months down.’* For that time the•“ dishonest ” burglar had to bo a “clip” (pickpocket).

'The next charge was that of drun holiness while on duty, and “.spilling” —talking too much. The man had beer detailed to watch a house and repor! on the habits of the occupiers, but had found a greater attraction in a neighbouring hotel His sentence was “ Seven months off.” Ho would not be allowed to do anything during that period. The judge rebuked him severely, and the most ardent temperance advocate would have diilieully in slating the curse ol drink harder than the judge. , Then came a man accused or lurching.” Working with anotlicr_ on a house-breaking job. lie had lei t his companion in the lurch when they were disturbed. He had escaped; the other hue; been caught. He was given “ Eleven months down.”

My guide told me ho had nevei known anyone evade “sentence.” her that the penalty was “off always K meant being drummed out of tho underworld.

lie told mo that if a man lapsed twice seriously, a strip ol _ skin was taken off round his arm, just above tho elbow, so that wherever he went in an attempt to join another gang he would he known as a traitor. 1 have seen men with that ringed sear Two were “ Found drowned.” Crime, in its higher branches, nationally organised, and it may lie that they had been “put away.”