The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1920-11-02
GOTHAM MURDER ROLL
LONG AND STARTLING
SEVENTY NINE KILLINGS IN
NINE MONTHS REMAIN UN-
SOLVED IN NEW YORK.
CRIME TOLL STARTLING
Great Wave of Criminality Seems to
Be Sweeping Through the United
States This Year. Other Big Cities
Also Suffer Likewise.

Be Sweeping Through the United
States This Year. Other Big Cities
Also Suffer Likewise.
NEW YORK.-There were seven
ty-nine murders in New York city
during the first nine months of 1920,
which stand on the police and district
attorneys records as unsolved. The
circumstances surrounding most. of
them are enveloped in mystery and
| the perpetrators probably never will
pay the penalty for their crimes. The
police succeeded in ascertaining the
identity of the murderers in few in
| stances, but the evidence obtained by
/ the detectives proved so fimsy that
! the prisoners either were turned out
of the lower courts or the grand JurieS
failed to find indictments,
| Brooklyn leads the FIVE boroughs
with thirty-six unsolved murders, or
one to each 56,l73 persons in the
borough. Manhattan is a close second
with thirty-two, almost FIVE times as
many unsolved murders as have Gin
cinnati and Philadelphia, the popula-
ton of the two latter cities being al
most equal to that of this city's larg
est borough. The Bronx had only four
murders in the nine months period
which the police failed to clear up.
The borough of Queens had five and
Richmond two, one of which is the
Eckert bootlegging murder.
Dispatches from several cities
throughout the east and central states
report a startling increase in crimes
of violence A similar increase occurr-
ed in this city in September, during
which there were ten murders IN Map-
haitian alone.
January Wicked Month.
Although the crime barometer as
ecnded. during September, available
records show that January tops the
list of unsolved murders with twelve.
September and May had ten each.
Tune, the month which the myterious
murder of Joseph B. Elwell, the turf
man, occurred, had only FIVE, the low
est number.
The details of but few murders ever
reach print Very often they are the
result of vendetta, in which the read
ing public takes little or no interest,
or OF some local gang feud, the oper-
: atoms of which gang have not beer
extensive enough to warrant eXposi-
r ton in the public press. When the per
son slain proves to be some one OF
importance in the community or the
circumstances surrounding the murder
| are unusual the details usually are
{ given at great length in the newspa'
: pers. But these latter cases are COM
: parative1y few.
Nearly half of the unsolved murders
: occurred in the public highways ano
2 the implements used were knives, PTS
. tolls or blackjacketS.
Highway robbery was the motive II
many cases and large number prob
: ably resulted from factional disputes
land vendetta. A few were saloon
brawls. the number OF which has IN
creased greatly since the advent OF the
eighteenth amendment These latter
usually are the kind OF crimes detec-
tives consider easy to clear up, as
someone invariably knows the muir
, derer. But the number OF these muir
ders which still remain unsolved Is
surprisingly large
Crime Wave in Philadelphia.
: Philadelphia, like New York, is III
= the grip of a crime wave. Between
January | and the last day OF Septem-
S Der there were eighty murders IN the
| PENNSYLVANIA city, only FIVE OF which
} remained unsolved. St. Louis, IN the
same period, had twenty-four murders
r only six of which remained unsolyed
There were twelve homicides IN en-
| cinnati in the nine months, all but two
of which have been cleared up by the
: police. u.
In Manhattan the lower east side
has the greatest number OF Ensolved
, murders since the beginning OF i9Z0
Ten persons were shot and killed or
stabbed to death in the territory
bounded roughly by East Houston
Broadway. Chambers street and the
East river. Three murders that have
puzzled the police for many months
occurred a few blocks apart IN the
, Italian colony surrounding Mulberry,
Mott. Kenmare and Grand streets
Harlem has seven unsolved murders
MANY of which happened in East Har-
lem. where there is a dense foreign
noDulatien. The lower. west side, TAX
mo in Greenwich village, the center
of gang wars for many years, has sew
en-. only two OF which were in torelgn
sections.