RAIL UP, SYDNEY!

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 228, 25 March 1912, Page 3

RAIL UP, SYDNEY!

| THE MAX WITH THE WHITE MASK. First of all things that strike the newcoiner to Sydney is the patience of its people (says the Sun). He innocently takes up a telephone in the first hour of its arrival. An hour later he puffs out his indignation to a Sydney man, who says, "Oh, yes, it's pretty bad."* In a few days he will *tand aghast a; the list of tramway fatalities and amazed at the calm acceptance by the public of things as they are. During the last week or two a unique spectacle has been afforded. A community of ,600,000 people and all their ' guardian" police have been practically held up by a small, thin man, who moves at night. When the police see this pestilential fellow they will know him, and put an end to his doings. To men of their acumen lie will be recognisable, for it is his habit to carry a revolver and an electric torch, and to wear a nicely ironed white handkerchief over his face. The movements of the criminal are all known to the police—twenty-four hours after he has moved—and they are all recorded in a big book at Hunter street, with neat red-ink line ruled between each movement. The red-ink lines are part of the "system," and it is well-known that every criminal, sooner or later, must fall into the net of the system—if he is stupid enough. The month of January disclosed nothing very remarkble in the crime records. There were a few trifles of shopbreaking, the robbery of £7O from aj Crown street grocer, the burgling of an Oxford street jeweller's shop, and the theft of 50 gold rings, and a few other trifles of that sort. On the last day of that month the i short and slender gentleman commenced his career. Early in the morning he proceeded unobtrusively to "Bombela," Hj'de street, Pott's Point. Entering the bedroom of Mrs. Robinson, a visitor from ; Auckland, he coolly helped himself to a diamond necklace, valued at £SO, while the unhappy lady was terrified into silenco by the display of his revolver. The report of an incident of this sort in a handy and populous suburb which . might reasonably expect adequate police protection was disquietening. Public confidence was restored magnificently. "The police," ran the concluding sen- 1 tence of the report, "have the matter in hand," They have it in hand still, and; the Man with the White Mask has the diamond necklace in hand. The Man with the White Mask, by the daring success of his armed robberies, has emboldened lesser fry in the criminal world. The continuance of his operations has been accompanied by a crop of smaller thefts and housebreakings. When the hunters are out after a big tiger the jackals are busy about the village.