A Melbourne Fiz-Gig!

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 4, 16 June 1887, Page 4

A Melbourne Fiz-Gig!

Says the Melbourne Leader Three young men named respectively Walker, Spenser and Davis were arrested some weeks ago, while attempting to pass a forged cheque on the National Bank at South Melbourne. In the course of their trial it was alleged that the prisoners were the victims of a fiz-gig named Louis Palmer, who was the prime mover in the fraud, but who had with the connivance of the police, been allowed to escape. Of course, the statements of prisoners in their defence must be taken with considerable caution, but the charge levelled at the detectives is not unfortunately new. There is some reason to suppose that the fiz-gig is not a myth but a reality, and that as a decoy duck for certain smart detectives his services are occasionally engaged. It is by means of such agents that "putup” cases as they are called are successfully carried through. With or without the knowledge of the police, a fiz-gig may induce a number of young larrikins to join him in a raid upon a bank or the shop of a jeweller. He arranges all the preliminaries, and having put the detectives on rhe qui vine, they pounce upon the gang at the proper time, while the fiz-gig takes care to remain at a safe distance from the scene of operations, The South Melbourne forgery case presents certain features which might be thought to bear out the assertions of the prisoners, and as Louis Palmer, the person implicated, has been arrested, special care should be taken to thoroughly investigate the charge. The Police Commission, in their report, expressed their belief in the existence of the system, although it was strongly denied, and they denounced it as unjustifiable and mischievous. The authorities have always been averse to the system of employing fiz-gigs, and if it has been had recourse to in this instance the detectives have acted on their own responsibility. This, however, is only a tacit disapproval of a very objectionable practice, and more than this is required. Fiz-gigs only serve to recruit the ranks of the criminal classes and to intensify the depravity it should be the aim of the police to suppress rather than encourage.