Sidelights on Crime.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue XXXXV, 27 November 1903, Page 4

Sidelights on Crime.

Recently, writes a representative of the Daily News, I had a long chat wuth Inspector J. Davidson,, late of the London detective force. Mr Davidson has recently retired after serving with considerable distinction for five and twenty years. " Tell mo something about your past. You must have arrested a lot oi criminals in your time."—•• y e * that is so. I have arrested many hundreds of men, women and boys during my five-and-twerity years' service. Years ago London was a very different place for criminals from what it is to-day. When I was a young fellow the streets of the city fairly swarmed with rogues and thieves, and nearly every alley was a nost of crime. In those days we used to be kept pretty busy 'jailing ' rascjals of all kinds."

" What do you consider your biggest case ?"- "That's « hard iq'uei tion to answer, but one of my biggest was one of my latest. A gang) of forgers ihad been foiling and uttering Bank of England notes, and I was put on to run them down,and I did—assisted, of course, by other officers ; but it was my case. H took me two and a half years to secure my men, but in ) he" end I got the whole gang convicted, and the sentences passed on the lot amounted in the a{.*rrag!ate to 140 years. Some I arrested in London, some in Antwerp. Pans, and other places." "Did any of them'show fight ■>"— •' No ; criminals seldom do ; they are rank cowards, as u rule, and know when they are beaten." " Does the Bank of England make a specialty of running down the ■crooks' who tamper with its notes?" " Yes ; the man. or gang of men who meddle with Bank of England notes lay themselves out to ' buytrouble,' as our American friends say, lor the bank spares neither money, time nor talent when a forgery is known to have taken place. No matter where the gang have their headquarters, no matter how clever the leader may be, no matter what influence surrounds and protects them, when once the Bank of England starts out in pursuit there is no cessation until the criminals are run down ; it may take years to do but in the end it is always done." 'Did you ever know a'really bad case of blackmailing ?"—"The worst case I ever came in contact with was in 1897, when three brothers were arrested for blackmailing women. I arrested them and brought them to justice, and am glad to say they met with heavy punishments! They wormed their way into tho confidence of women by means of a patent medicine advertisement, and when the women were foolish enough to reply to the advertisement, which was circulated in a woman's name, these scoundrels at once blackmailed them instead of sending the medicine as advertisod. I myself caused many sackloads of such letters to be destroyed. I had evidence to prove tho gang had blackmailed over a thousand foolish females before they wure brought to book."