SLY WOMEN

Hokitika Guardian, 4 September 1929, Page 8

SLY WOMEN

“CROOKS OF SYDNEY.” SYDNEY, Aug. 8. While Sydney’s underworld is show ing signs of emulating the racketeers of Chicago by adopting hold-up tactics and oilier more or less picturesque practices, it has not yet produced a woman “crook” of the brazen type of the Chicago lady who, the other day, calmly sat at the wheel of a motor car while bullets whizzed round her. Never theless Sydney has its women criminals aplenty. The Sydney woman “crook” is a subtle, sly, sinister person who generally keeps well out of the limelight. She is often the engineer of coups for which later some man or men suffer when they are caught by the police. When she does take an active part in a crime, it is done as a rule so cunningly that few, except her victims are aware of what has happened One notorious woman ‘crook’ runs a little shop, which is really a “dope joint” She is believed to be at the back of many robberies by armed men. When a dope fiend has taken a certain amount of cocaine he becomes crazed and fearless. He loses all finer feeling and is transformed into a blind unreasoning beast, who stops at nothing This gentle lady’ method is to give some men, known thieves enough dope to bring them to this-state of mind. Then she will quietly say: “There is a place out at So-andSo worth tackling—any amount of money and silver there’ The dope crazed thieves as a rule need no further hint, but quickly get tq work, if any one attempts to thwart them the result is often disastrous.

| Another type of woman crook is the pickpocket—and many of these are very clever at their game. One of the most notorious in Sydney was known as l “Timber May,” and she died worth thousands of pounds. There are, the police sayj few women burglars. When women figure in burglaries they are usually used as decoys. Of course there are numerous women who lure men to their homes and there rob them One favourite method is to induce the man to enter a house. Then after a little time a man will enter the room where the couple are and will exclaim “What do you mean by being in this room with my. wife?” Blackmail will follow, and when this is unsuccessful the visitor will be brutally assaulted by the woman and the man, and robbpd of everything he possesses of any value. So as /to avoid publicity few complaints are made to the police of such cases.

Since the campaign started a few years ago to clear the “crook” out of the city, many women criminals and their men associates have left the famous Darlinghurst area to live in the outer The resumptions of! city slums has. also driven many nests of crooks from their lair. However, it is doubtful if this breaking up of the old established rendezvous has had any effect m checking crime. Things to-day are so much easier for the croocks than they were some years ago. The motor has revolutioniseed the' methods of the criminals. A burglar living in one of the distant suburbs can operate in the city area and then make a rapid escape. Certainly there has been no falling-off in crime in Sydney. There has been an increase, if anything, in crimes of violence.