CRIME WAVE.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 November 1925, Page 4

CRIME WAVE.

.MURDERS IN CHICAGO. ■SAN FRANCISCO, October 12. The ushering in ol th.e month of October witnessed an abnormal increase in crime in many of the great centres ol population in the Eastern United States, Chicago heading the list in this new carnival of crime. Murder continues in Cool; County, Chicago, at the rate of more than one a day, and it is officially stated that in the 279 days of 1921 there wore 284 murders, many of which were of a most heinous character.

Those were not accidental killings, justifiable homicides or manslaughter eases. They were murder in the formal verdicts of the Coroner's juries. In the first nine months, Coroner \\ olle. of Chieneo, leporfed muri tiers in Cook County, while Chief of Police Collins reported only I:)7 nuir- ! tiers in Chicago. If hoth are correct, there were lid murders in Cool; Countv , outside ol Chicago in tie first nine ' months ol l!!:_'-i, which no responsible ■ person would dare charge. The fact is that it i- osceodingly tlilliciilt. if not impossible, to reconcile the two counts of the total nnmher of murders. It is apparent that the Coroner’s juries have classed killings as murder which the police have classed as accidents, justifiable homicides or manslaughter, says a report issued on the crime wave. .Yew York is thoroughly aroused over the present recrudescence ol crime in the country, and I" at her Knickerbocker, beset by crooks and accused by reformers of leading the

n.'Hi'ni astray, is bestirring himself to cardi and punish murderers and burglars. Hut he insists that morally be is not ns bail as he is painted. Seven judges are speeding up jury trials of criminals, and the addition of old more men, and twenty-five more women to the police force, has been authorised because a crime wave in the last few days of September and the beginning of October has seemed to Ice at high tide. (oxthast Avrrn fxolaxd.

One opinion as to the extent of crooks’ activities is that of Judge Otto A. Ifosalsky, of General Sessions, in Yew York, where criminals are tried. He thinks that during his twenty years on the bench, conditions in Yew York were never worse than they are now.

n.M-li Imm Kuropoon Orlohor fitli. lio | ronlrnslod conditions ns to crime in • America generally ami New Voile in pari icnlnr. unlnrournlily uitli those nbmail. "In Enolnnd and Franco criminals are terrified by the thought ol the sentences they may receive,” he said, “ rnlortunalrlv, our Parole

Hoards, instead of holding criminals charged with serious crimes, liberate them wiih the minimum sentences,’.’ In the court looms on the day that -ledge liosalskv arrived hack in Yew \ u''k i nun Hritain. so many cases w ere disposed ol that i-lerks could not make i nnmpelte record of them, -Meanwhile tehi o mi, ii eonic-hm k to charges made in Washington by the Methodist Epi- 1 -wopal Hoard of Prohibition, Temper- I anie and .Morals, that Yew York is a I menace to the rest of America because I ol its output of salacious literature and I I‘lays. and •• wet ” propaganda.