CRIME IN SYDNEY.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 510, 5 September 1902, Page 3

CRIME IN SYDNEY.

ATTACK ON THE POLICE. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Sydney, Sept. 4. In the Assouibly, Mr Dan O’Connor made u strong attack on the administration of the police force. He said innumerable crimes were committed in the city at night owing to the want of sufficient protection. There was in the community a general sense of insecurity. A majority of members repudiated the statement, and defended the force.

GROWTH OF CRIMINAL AUDACITY

Sydney, August 20. The outrage committed at the Victoria Market buildings, following so soon upon the unpunished murder of Constable Guilfoyle and the shooting of Constable Maher, indicates an alarming growth in the audacity of Sydney criminals. The two constables were deliberately shot down in tho public street of a densely-populated suburb, within a few yards of the boundary, by men who stopped to make sure of their work by firing several times at their prostrate victims, after which they disappeared, and are still at large. With all the facilities for preventing the escape of criminals now at tho command of the police, it would seem almost incredible that anyone oxcopt under tho influence of suicidal frenzy would attempt such an outrage. But yosterday’s crime was scarcely less sensational in its boldness. A man, in tho busiest part of Goorgo street, at midday, coolly walks into tho offico of a well-known merchant, murderously assaults him, and, after helping himself to a large sum of money, goes as he came, leaving him on the floor weltering in blood. That he did not

actually murder as well as rob him is merely as it happened. And it was all donein the methodical, matter-of-fact way of a man paying a business call to a merchant in the heart of the city at the busiest time of day. If a citizen is not safe from criminals who casually drop in to murder him under such circumstances, where and when may he cease to be on his guard ? It all seems to indicate; on the part of the criminals a growing disregard for the agencies which are employed to repress them. Not long ago thare was an outbreak of highway robbery with violence in the city, the perpetrators of which showed that they were perfectly prepared to incur the guilt of murder in effecting their ends. In Melbourne a similar state of things prevailed, while in that city capital crime is still unusually rife. That is, to say at least, poor encouragement for those sentimentalists who every now and then rise in our midst to deplore the harshness with which society treats murderers when it catches them. If criminal audacity is to go on increasing at its present rate, people will loso confidence in the power of tho law to protect them, and take means for protecting themselves. This would load to an increase of bloodshed, in which the innocent would suffer much more than tho guilty. Still, if there is not a reasonable assuranco that tho purposo of an ordinary stranger calling at a business office is not to kill and rob tho occupant, what aro people to do ? With red-handed murderers, possibly, walking about tho city, people will be inclined, where tbo slightest causo for suspicion exists, to give themselves the benefit of the doubt. As far as tho Sydney police are concerned, no ono doubts either thoir energy or their iutolligenco. But the question sugggested by tho evidently increasing audacity of tho criminal class is whether they have sufficient force for the work that they have to do. Every year we have legislation casting now duties upon them, and requiring their attention to different matters. Unless we increase thoir strength commensurately with this increase of work, it stauds to reason that criminals will havo a freer scope provided for them.