CRIME IN SAN FRANCISCO.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8310, 13 December 1906, Page 3

CRIME IN SAN FRANCISCO.

SAN FEANCISCO, November 15. Investigation of municipal "graft" in San. Francisco is proceeding, or promising to proceed. The grand jury is nearly complete, and Francis J. Heney, who, as Assistant District Attorney, will prosecute the cases, maintains a determined front. The State elections have changed the status of affairs very little, beyond demonstrating that the people are prepared to stand behind the investigators. A notable recent event in the capture of two thugs who have \ committed several murders, and terrified the whole city, The men are John Siemsen, a Hawaiian of partly German parentage, and Louis Dabner, a young man of respectable American parentage. These two have confessed to the murder of the manager of the Japanese Bank, and of two merchants who were killed for money in their own shops, and their is evidence corroborating the testimony of the criminals. The men are known as "gas-pipe thugs," because of their nlethod of murdering their victims. Their capture was the result of continuing their crimes too long. They went into the shop of a jeweller nallied Behrend, made a purchase, and tendered payment which required the opening of.the safe for change. But when they attacked Behrend, the victim, though terribly injured, managed to make a desperate fight. The wife of Behrend, living in rooms over the shop, heard the noise, and rushed to the assistance of her husband. Other help soon arrived, and though the thugs escaped for the time, they were soon in the custody of the police. Siemsen, though showing Malay blood, is well educated and attractive. He expresses no remorse for his crimes, and talks of them in a matter-of-fact fashion. Dabner, on the contrary, is at times contrite. The Jatter's family, who. are honest farming people, are heart-broken-over the downfall of their sdh and brother.