CRIME IN BRITAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 March 1920, Page 5

CRIME IN BRITAIN.

ACTIVITIES OF THE POLICE. GREAT CONTEST OF WITS. A great contest of wits is being waged between the master minds at Scotland Yard and the modern scientific criminals, who have lately achieved a startling run of successes, writes a London correspondent. Criminologists have been busy devising new plans and methods to deal the present outbreak of lawlessness, and it now appears that a satisfactory plan of campaign has been evolved. This fact was admitted by the Commissioner, Sir Nevil Macready, but he declined to give any details of his scheme. "I quite agree," he said, "that the modern burglar isn't the same pig-head-ed fellow that Bill Sikes was in Dickens' time." Complete_ returns of criminal cases during the last year not yet available, he said, and in their absence be was not prepared to say that there had been any substantial increase in lawlessness. During tH years of the war there had been a marked decline, and, although the figures were now on tho increase, he did not think they had risen much above the 1018 level.