SYDNEY'S UNDERWORLD ESTABLISHES REIGN OF TERROR AND VIOLENCE.

Shannon News, 14 May 1929, Page 3

SYDNEY'S UNDERWORLD ESTABLISHES REIGN OF TERROR AND VIOLENCE.

SYDNEY, Feb. 14. Residents of Sydney’s underworld are not easily terrified, and tlie fact that a majority of residents in the notorious quarter bolt their doors and are afraid to go out to go out at night is ar. indication that the gangsters are particularly active. Surry Hills is within the city proper, and the houses are small and squalid, the streets narrow and dirty, and there are countless lanes and byways which make it an admirable resort for criminals.

It is only with the utmost difficulty, and at great risk to their own lives, that the police operate in this quarter. During the past fortnight desperate thugs have established a reign of terror, and their crimes have been most audacious in character. Principally these ruffians have been inflamed by a lust for plunder, but happenings generally suggest a vendetta among the criminal class. Police interference in such circumstances is not welcomed. *

The thugs set a seal on recent happenings early on Saturday morning last by a series of crimes which they managed to perpetrate in the short space of an hour and a-half. The record is probably -without parallel in the later history of Sydney’s lawlessness. At different places two men were assaulted, one in a particularly brutal fashion; two men were robbed, and an attempt was made to rob a confectionary shop,'and at a residential building the proprietor w T as forced to r fire a revolver shot to protect himself and his lodgers from garroters. Arrests followed this outrage. Assault with a Beer Bottle.

The trio commenced operations ' late on Friday night -when they’went to a confectionary shop, intending to hold up the proprietor. They were frustrated owing to the unexpected presence of a number of male patrons in a rear room. Money hungry,, the men then turned their attention to a lonely pedestrian near the city. The man was wise to offer no resistance and was allowed to continue on his way unharmed after he had been robbed. A similar experience befel a man who was bailed up a few minutes later. He was merely robbed of a fairly ■ large sum of money. At 12.40 a.m. Saturday came the big coup—a particularly ferocious act, the result, possibly, of an undenvorld vendetta. Going to a boarding house the men dragged one of the boarders out into the street. One of them punched him on the chin and hit him a smashing blow r on the head -with a beer bottle, which -was frill. The bottle has .been proclaimed as “Australia’s national weapoit,” but those w r ho use it generally empty it first. As the unfortunate victim sagged to the ground he w r as brutally kicked and finally robbed. The bottle was smashed to pieces by the force of the blow. A tramwayinan who was in uniform was mistaken for a policeman, and the thugs made off, leaving their victim very close to death. A Greek with a Revolver. Next the gangsters entered another boarding house, robbed one of the lodgers and demanded money from two others, threatening to “do for them” if they refused. The proprietor, a Greek, met the situation energetically. Producing a loaded revolver he chased the three men out of the place, and as they raced dowm the street he fired a shot into the air. This brought the police patrol on the scene and arrests followed. Owing to the peculiar code of “loyalty” to one another existing among the people' of the underworld, the police anticipate great difficulty in securing the necessary evidence against those tvho are under arrest.

The majority of the men who are assaulted from time to time within the Surry Hills area do not report the matter to the police, for they fear the consequences of such action. Further than that they find a great deal of pleasure in dealing personally* with their assailants. And so it is that the neighbourhood boasts a state of at night, and peope who know the loof the houses are locked and bolted open warfare almost continually. Most cality refuse to walk the streets alone.