The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-01-16
GOTHAM D|SCARDS NICKEL NOVEL FOR
 GENUINE THRILLER
Modern New York Bandits Ex. ploits Make Diamond Dick" and Handsome Harry"
 Look Like Pikers
By Associated Press


 New York, January Skew YoTx has thrown away it's nickel novel of 1920 to begin reading the 1921 thriller of Dead Mans Gulch moved into Broadway and the Black Hills set down on Fifth ave nue somewhere between the Waldrot- Astoria and Forty second street.
 With something like 400 robberies and "stick-ups" on the newspaper lists of crimes for the past year, and more than 100 murders and killings set down by news offices as 'unsolved' the new year has had set for it penny-dreadful record it will take two gunmen from Coyote canyon lifetime's endeavor to beat.
 A ride from the Grand Central in taxicab now is considered by leading papers of the city to have nothing on q trip in the Deadwood stage coach and the big hotels and restaurants loom up as cheery 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 rings out ct midnight when Central park is closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic and all persons abroad must give account of themselves when asked
 EVERYBODY ARM
 Tn the past month judges on the crimi- nal courts bench have urged formation of citizens committees on a par with the vigilantes of the frontier before it was accused of moving back east to metropolitan centers. The mayor has warned all persons carrying or possessing valuables to procure permits to arm themselves against highwayrpen and the police have tried to get back to some thing like first principles in life and property protection.
 Crimes have been chronicled as though they were robbery and murder cyclones and the subway reader has felt all the thrill of riding the Overland limited iu the days when Jesse James and his gang held no prairie railroad immune from their ravages
 Estimates have placed about s4Oo0,oW as the total value of loot obtained by burglars thieves and yeggmen in New York during 1920. Daylight hold-ups, at tacks in leading great white way hotels and automobile banditry have yielded much of the yaluables stolen. As many as 40 robberies and thefts have been fea- tured for a months acts of violence or note. and six such attempts in day have been recorded.
 MURDER MYSTERIES
 Of the more than 100 "unsolved mur~ ders listed by some papers a number now are nationally, if not internationally, known Beginning with killing iasI' New Years day, 19a's record started strong. Conspicuous in the F montns' list were the murder of Joseph B. Elwel, Miss Renie Constance Hoxie and Freder- iclx c. Ecker. Elwell, known from coast to coast as a whist expert and horse- man. was shot to death in his handsomely furnished West Seventieth street home Miss Hoxie, a 17-year-old girl, was round mutilated in her fathers house: Eckert, 4 former government agent and alleged whisky runner, was found shot dead Tn an automobile in Staten Island
 In the robberies, organized bands or glnmen have seemed to predomlnate. Thefts of valuable goods from railroad freight cars, bulking big in packing cases have been considerable. Stolen automo- piles have been reported constantly. But hold-ups of the old time type, by day as well as by night, on the street. III the home, in hotels, where masked ana unmasked men have taken what they wanted at the point of pistols, nave called forth the hue and cry against al- legged Inadequate police protection
 BANDITS THRIVE
 Automobile bandits have made off with a number of factory pay rolls and banks have seen gunmen walk in and demand money from the safe under penalty CT instant death.
 All this time the police department has been under fire. Police Commissioners E,nright, right bower of the city admin istration, has been attacked continually in the newspapers because of the preva- 1ence of the gunman,
 The commissioner has retorted by as serting that this condition exists else where. To combat it he has lengthene the hours of police duty, called Tor oVl additional policemen and sent out au tomobile squads armed with rifles to pa trol thA shonnine and business districts.