New Britain herald., 1930-10-21
PARIS CRIME WAVE
 LAID TO CHICAGO
Gangland Slang Becomes Con-
 mon in French Underworld
By MINOTT SAUNDERS

Paris. Oct. 21.-The romance of Chicago gangland is now being blamed for wave of crime that has broken out in France.
 It may be a coincidence, but banditry of a peculiar nature is greatly troubling the police and in their investigations they profess to find American methods employed. They have become alarmed and are working energetically to break up gangs before the danger becomes worse.
 The press has observed that the crime wave grew since two Paris newspapers have been giving strik- ing publicity to the operations of criminal gangs in the larger Ameri- cal cities. A series of articles by George London on the underworld of Chicago appeared in Ic Journal, describing his personal investigations there and reporting his interviews with gangsters. Another Paris news paper has conducted an inquiry into the causes of gang warfare in the United States.
 The suggestion in that these stories of how expert gangsters oper- ate have stirred the imagination of criminal classes and furnished ideas that might be applied here. Robber-
 es and attacks of a bold nature have been referred to as parallels of American lawlessness.
 Detectives have been able 10 make many captures and they report that most of the crimes here have been committed by youths, or in many cases mere boys who have banded together. ready to take desperate chances and to shoot quickly if in- terfered with. They are described as amateurs. but they are all the more dangerous because they have big ideas.
 Such expressions as taken for a ride" and "on the spot are printed in English and became common phrases. Edgar Wallace's play of the Chicago underworld, 'On the Spot" is showing at a local theater. When Jack Diamond was being bounded about Europe in an attempt to get some free footing his adven- lures were given much publicity and an air of captivating mystery was created about him as "king of New York's underworld"
 One columnist wrote regretfully that he did not come to France be- cause he would be an interesting study and we have heard so much about him that we are sorry to miss him." Another and more serious writer ventured to state that Al Ca pone is one of the best known Americans to French school boys of the kind that like blood and thunder stories.
 One type of crime that has that of taking for a ride" taxi cab driver. Ths stunt is to engage taxi and give an address in the out skirts. There the chauffeur is over powered, beaten up nd often shot, and then robbed. This has been re- peated so often that the chauffeurs' union is trying to get police permis- sion to allow it's members to work armed There have been several in stances of bandits, knocking out a driver, leaving him by the roadside and taking the car back to the city where it was abandoned. Bandits have also been operating with high powered cars and pulling holdups on quiet highways.
 Prefect of Police Jean Chiappe has taken drastic measures to clean up Paris and he has established, for the first time here, a corps of mo- torcycle police to patrol the outlying districts and be prepared to give pursuit to automobile bandits The underworld has been combed for suspicious characters. Among thos> who have been found guilty are sev- eral youngsters whose careers have been short but whose ambitions in crime were astonishing.
 For some time there has been evil dence of operations of criminal gangs in Marseilles, bringing influ- ence on local affairs and disturbing labor unions. but Paris has been singularly free of this sort of thing. The apache, so well known in legend, is practically extinct, like the bad man of the golden west, but in his place has come the mother crim- inal, who appears to be taking a lesson from American gangland.