RAZOR OUTRAGES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5235, 6 February 1928, Page 2

RAZOR OUTRAGES.

WAVE IN SYDNEY.

HEAVY PENALTIES URGED.

The razor gang of Sydney is beginning to demand as much space in. the newspapers as the gun-men of Melbourne were getting some time back. This is a new form of criminal, amusement, and there have been quite? a number of victims. Usually the razor-slashing gang selects \ Darlinghurst as its field, of operatiotok* and some of the cases .are of an extraordinary character. The other night a young woman named Betty Carslake was slashed with a razor by a man who knocked at her flat in King’s Cross; Road, Darlinghurst. Why ? One account stays that it was simply because she had refused to encourage the advances a young man had attempted to make on several occasions; when she passed him in the street. This made him so angry that, having fqund out where she lived, he called at her flat and when she opened the; door he slashed her with a razor across; her face. But the razor-slashing as a general thing seems to be a matter of compliments between rival gangs. In any case, it is time the police put an end to it. In the last two or three months the police are said tbi have arrested about sixty men with razors inthejr possession, though it does not folloti, of course, that they all had J sinister intentions. There is'nothing to prevent a man carrying a razor about with him. The casa is different with firearms. A local paper gives a list of half a dozen serious cases of razor-slashing that have occurred in Sydney. “A weapon of the Amerlan negro, the razor is having a vogue in Sydney which is spreading terror throughout the community,” it says, “ and a der mand is now made for a penalty which will help to stamp out its use.” ■ The paper set out to ascertain the views of more or less prominent citizens on the subject, but onfly one or two were willing that their names , should be published. The others were afraid they might be marked down; for attention if they dared to express J any opinions. Apart from a couple 6®-. high-placed police officials, the only man who had the courage to allow his name to be used was the Rev. Hugh Paton, who said : “ The use of the modern razor is reverting to the pre-historic methods of vengeance 1 don’t think a long gaol sentence helpsany. These people are a serious menace to society, and I think the lash would check their bravado.” The other people, l who were interviewed included a city property investor, who said: “ Flogging is the only thing, and sootier the wetter”; an estate agent, who said the only remedy was flogging, and a city solicitor, who said : ‘ I would give a man convicted of razor-slashing six months without the option and a flogging for the first offence ; a second offence would merit two years and a flogging iqvery three months.”