Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-02
bLACKMA|L A La MODE
Gangs Of Natives and Aliens
in New York.
THEY ROB AND MURDER
CRIMINALS WHO MENACE PEACE
AND SAFETY.
Chinese Highbinders, Italian Black
Hand Societies and the Home Pro-
ducts Keep City in Terror.

| 1t Is said that not a day passes without
! mention in the Paris newspapers of a muir
| der or highway robbery by the banded ruff
| fans known the "Apaches." 1t may also
be said that not day passes without some
| recital in the New York papers of crime
! committed by the Black Hand" or the
| Tongs of Chinatown, or by ope of the
| American gangs on the swarming east
| side. Every great city has it's peculiar type
| Of street criminal--except cosmopolitan
| New York, where several types are to be
| found, destined in time to be a composite.
| London has its impudent, low-browed
| Hoolgan, Melbourne Its brutal and cow
| ardly Larrikin, and Paris its Apache
| bloodthirsty and almost as cunning as the
| savage after whom he Is named.
| New York has no such organization of
criminals. but in its population of 100000
| there are some evil elements that run to
| combinations and are already a grave
| menace to the peace and welfare of the
| community. Just now the Italian Black
| Hand Society, called from the emblem
| which 1t uses in threatening letters to it's
| well-to-do fellow aliens, are giving the po-
| lice much trouble They do not stick at
murder, and dynamite is one Of their means
| OF intimidation. The following letter ex-
| planned to Gaetano Costa, a Brooklyn
| butcher, how he could escape the vengeance
| of the Black Hands. which he had often
been threatened with: Take the Hamil-
| ton avenue car to Hamilton ferry, cross to
! New York, and take a 9th avenue car.
Ride until l ask you for chew of tobacco
When ask this, hand me $500" Costa
| walked in the shadow of death, worried
| much, but he dared not appeal to the po-
| lice for protection. One night about dusk
| he was shot and killed in his butcher shop
shot four times, and left weltering In
| his blood. The police found no traces of his
| assailant, and the crime remains a mys-
| terry that gives the small Italian merchants
| who have any BLACK Hand literature the
| shivers.
Fear Prevents Prosecution.
| In the middle of October the grocery of
| the Gimbalyo Bros, on Stanton street,
| Manhattan, was shattered by bomb about
8 o'clock in the morning. The Gimbalvos
| had received several Black Hand letters,
| the last demanding 81 600. and paid no heed
| to them. The front of the store was
wrecked by the explosion, but the sleeping
brothers were not injured Detective Pet
| rosino, who Is detailed to work among the
| Italian criminals, takes a serious view Of
| this Black Hand business
Il believe these Camorristi," he says
| have begun working over this country In
| organized gangs lately. You know my
| country people are averse to testifying In
| court against the criminals, even when
| they know who and what they are. Fear
| makes them dumb The penal code is DOW
| erless to touch the scoundrels. Deportation
| to my mind, is the only remedy. 1 could
pick out 1000 men in this city who should
| be deported for the good of the country
| On an average, ten matchmaking letters
| are turned over to me every day by Ital-
| ians. This is only a small proportion The
| great majority of victims either keep silent
| and take chances or else consent to be bled.
| -Four shops on the east side have been
| wrecked with dynamite to emphasize black
| mail demands within few months In
| each case the owner was an Italian
The Highbinders.
| OF late the Chinese tongs. or high
| binder societies, have eclipsed all other
New York gangs in daring and contempt
! for the law. They have fought out their
| feuds in Chinatown, which is on Doyer and
! Pell streets, just off the Bowery, with bat
| teries of .44-caliber revolvers, as if there
were no such body as the uniformed po-
| lice. The force formerly had very little
! trouble with the meek, slouching Cinnamon
| who SUNK in and out of the tea shops and
fan tan joints of the slums, but the wars
| of the tongs have made it a dark and
| bloody ground, like the Chinatown of San
| Francisco, and it is a common thing now
| for guns TO crack there, and for call to
| be turned in for the police reserves.
The biggest shooting bee occurred on
Saturday night, August @, in the Chinese
| theater on Doyer street, during the per-
| Torrance of the play, The Kings Dargh-
| ter, when the band box of playhouse
| was crowded with Cinnamon belonging to
| the Hip Sing longs and the On Leong
| longs. The explosion of bunch of fire
| crackers thrown on the stage by partisan
| of the Hip Sing longs was signal under.
| stood by the audience, and they tumbled
to their feet with cries of terror that
| drowned the jangling music white man
| can with difficulty tell one Chinaman from
| another, but the assassins, who were Hip
| Sing Tongers, made no mistakes and few
| misses. Three of the victims expired soon
| after the smoke of the pistols had drifted
| into the wings.
The Hip Sing Tong figures In other cities
| form aslror y,i1ntf i'm 1fxr
| seems to be to shoot reform into the de-
| PRAYED. Retributiop always follows. The
| depraved take their turn at killing and the
| police may catch them Ii they can. The
Cinnamon never seem to modest white men;
! their pistol practice is reserved for their
| own race, and the police do not pretend to
| understand feud which Is more ferocious
| than a Breathttt county vendetta. The pub
| ,ic prosecutor does not expect to send the
| Doyer street assassins to the electrical
| chair, for he despairs of getting evidence
/ that will convict from blank-faced yellow
| men who understand what the penalty of
| knowing anything about the feud would be
| in Chinatown when the police were not
| around.
| Native Thugs.
| The Black Hands and Tongs are the i'm
| ported article In gangs. The native type
! of street thug and murderer Is as old as
| the Bowery, but the American gang of to-
| day has not the daredevil and almost he
roic characteristics of the notorious whyo
| gang VI twenty years ago, which was al
| ways battling with the police, and was
| sometimes led by ruffians who expiated
| their crimes on the gallows. The gang chiefs
| nowadays are ready enough with the pis-
| tol. with q disregard of life which stamps
/ them as savages; but most of them have
| political pull and seldom remain long in
/ durance vile. Monk Eastman, the tough
| est specimen of street bravo since the
| Whyo days, is now serving ten years
| term in Sing Sing for emptying his revolt
/ yer at Pinkerton detective, who was pro-
4 fpctiuE a drunken robbery
| the gang. The police felt relieved when
Monk" Eastman was put out of the way,
| though they would not be surprised to see
| him pardened on trumped-up evidence-he
| has a pull with the man higher up" that
has extricated him from more than one
| scrape.
The Monk Eastman gang filled much
| space in the public prints. Theyfwere hire
] lings for mayhem. and round election time