The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-03-24
COUNTRIES CRIME CENTER
WICKEDEST DISTRICT IN THE
 WORLD.

" Is the Boast of ChicagO-Nine-Ye Year , old BurgIar.-Dark Courts and CriminaIs-The Maxwell Street Dis- trict.
 Chicago has been famed for it's dirtiest river, it's biggest stock yards, it's busiest corners. Now, says the Chi !, cago Tribune, new item must be add , ed to these spreaders of it's fame. It has the wickedest police district in the world.
 Concentrated in district less than ] two miles long and not more than one wide, is the crime centre of the coun- try. Muraderers, robbers and thieves : of the worst kind are here born, reared . and grown to maturity in numbers that far exceed the record of any similar districts anywhere on the face of the globe.
 The centre of this reigon is the Max , well street police station. On all sides 2 o fit are saloons and houses which have seen the rise and often the deatr , of some of the worst criminals the : country has known.
 Two blocks from the station, at the , corner of Sangamon street and Four teenth place, is strip of ground that on various occasions has been literally , soaked with blood. Sometimes the blood { was that of criminals killed in revolver , fights with the police; oftener 1t was that of policemen who met their death at the hands of the gangs of ruffians l. who made the district unsafe to all who without the sacred folds of "the gang"
 , More policemen were killed on this one corner than any place in the city It was here that Bluff" HHiggtnes 2 shot and killed McCue, it was here , that the Henry street gang held off a 2 detail of police for two hours one after noon, and 1t was here that the, na!rr- ious Mortell- -McGraW faction won the l: record for killing officers in fight after < fight with the men from the Mexwell , street station,
 Within this territory there live, in some fashion or other, 205,OO0 persons, , including specimens of humanity from s every race creed and nation in the i. world, with only a sparse scattering of Americans. The streets on pleasant !: days are so packed with children that : is hard to walk without stepping on two or three in every block : Fully 100000 children are receiving z their first impressions of life in the crowded, sweaty tenements and dirty 2 streets; and thousands of them are !. growing up with only a vague idea of what the law is and with well defined 5 hatred for anything that resembles q \ policeman's uniform.
 Z It is not infrequent gocourance for a child of nine years to attempt murder. q Not long ago a nine year-old boy stab l. bed and mortally wounded another ! child of the same age. When asked < why he did it he said: 2 "Oh, gwan! Didn't he call me ; names?" N S A few weeks ago an officer investiga- ( ting a broken window was shot at from within the building He broke 2 in the door and groped his way through
 the shop till his hand fell on the arm of small boy,
 ] Taking the child under one arm, the ,5 policeman found a gas jet and lighted ~ it. The burglar proved to be 9 years
 a old.
 u ', what are you doing in here, son?" d demanded the officer.
 a I'm stickin' up the place." was the proud answer If I'd had another n bullet I'd a got you wen youse came :, in trough deh door, all right, all right," 2 It is as hard to catch criminal in 70 Bloody Maxwell" as to find the tradi- g tional needle in haystack 70 In many blocks every house is open "a to welcome and hide the criminal, whether the crime for which he is wan o ed be a murder or case of petty Q theivery.
 q In through dark court the criminal s may fly, into hall that leads into a n big tenement, up one, two or three 6 fights of stairs, and through door f which closes behind him, and he is as q safely hidden from the police as if he ? were a thousand miles out of the city. 5 The Chinatown of San Franscisco and a these precious blocks in the Maxwell il street districts are not to be compar- a ed in the matter of furnishing ways F and, means for escape and hiding of
 criminals when pursued by the police
 Considering the hundreds of thieves
 that the district turns out annually, the
 enmity of a good portion of the popu-
 llation toward the police, the congested T conditions which exist, and the hun = dreds of secret hiding places known to
 the criminals, it Is evident that the police of the Maxwell street station U have difficult problem on their hands . if they are to suppress the activities of V the bad men to any considerable degree
 It is doubtful if there is any district
 lin the world where 1t would be so hard e for the ordinary detective to find u criminal, even after his identity was
 established.