Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-01-15
New York's Crime Wave
Transforms BroaduUay TO
'Dead Mans GuLch','

NEW YORK.-New York has thrown
away its nickel novel of 1920, to be-
! gin reading the 1921 thriller of Dead
Mans Gulch moved into Broadway
and the Black Hills set down on Fifth
| avenue, somewhere between the Wal
dorf-Astoria and Forty-second street
With something like 400 robberies
and "stickups" on the newspaper lists
| of crimes for the last year, and more
| than 100 murders and killings set
| down by news offices as "unsolved,'
New Year has had set for it a penny
dreadful record it will take two-gun
men from Coyote Canyon a lifetime S
| endeaVor to beat.
A ride from the Grand Central in
a taXicah now is conceded by lead
ing papers of the city to have some
thing on trip in the Deadwood stage
coach and the big hotels and restau-
rants loom up as CHEEKY as the Santa
Fe saloon in the wild west days OF
the six-gun toter and the Bad Boy
Bandits of Bloody Hollow. Twenty
police riflemen patrol the streets at
night in automobiles. The curfeW
Park is closed to vehicular and pc
destrian traffic, and all persons
abroad must give account Of them
selves when asked.
In the last month, Judges on the
criminal courts bench have urged
par with the vigilantes of the
frontier before it was accused OF
moving back east to metropolitan CEN
ters The mayor has warned all per-
sons carrying or possessing Valuaples
to procure permits to arm themselves
against highwaymen and the poiice
have tried to get back to something
like first principles in life and prop
erty protection.
Grimes have been chronicled as
though they were robbery and muir
der cyclones, and the subway news
of riding the Overland Limited IN
the days when Jesse James and MS
gang held no prairie railroad immune
from their ravages.
Estimates have placed about
$4,000 900 as the total value OF 1907
obtained by burglars, thieves thieves -, a ana
Daylight holdups, attacks in lead,
ing Great White Way hotels and
automobile banditry have yielded
much of the valuables stolen. As
many as forty robberies and thefts
have been featured for a month S
acts of violence Of note, and SIX
such attempts in day have been
Of the more than one hundred "un-
solved" murders listed by some pa
pers, a number now are nationally
if not internationally, known: Be
ginning with a killing last New
strong.
CONSPICUOUS in the twelve months
list were the murders of Joseph r.
Elwell Miss Renie Constance Hoxle
and Frederick c. Ecker.
Elwell. known from coast TO coast
as a whist expert and horseman
was shot to death in his handsome
Iv furnished West Seventeen street
home; Miss Hoxie, seventeen
year-old girl, was found mut1lated In
her fathers house; Eckert, former,
government agent an, ana s,o all desd
in an automobile in Staten island.
In the robberies, organized bands
Of gunner have seemed to predoml-
nate. Thefts of valuable goods from
railroad sfreight cars, bulking big
in packing cases, have been consld-
been reported constantly. But hold
ups of the old-time type, by day as
well as night, on the street, in the
home, in hotels, where masked and
unmasked men have taken what
they wanted at the point of pistols,
have called forth the hue and cry
against alleged inadequate police
protection"
Automobile bandits have made off
with a number of factory payrolls
and banks have seen gunner walk
lin and demand money from the safe
under penalty Of instant death.
All this time the police depart
ment has been under fire. Police
Commissioner Enright, right bower
of the city administration, has been
attacked continually in the newspa-
pers because of the prevalence of
the gunman.
The commissioner has retorted by
asserting that this condition exists
elsewhere. To combat it he has
heightened the hours of police duty,
called for five hundred additional
policemen and sent out automobile
squads armed \ rifles to patrol
the shopping business districts.