The Warwickshire Herald. — 1888-09-20 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

HOW CRIME IS UNEARTHED IN VIENNA.  It is probably not generally known, says a Vienna correspondent, that when a few years ago certain reforms were introduced in the London police system, the Criminal Investigation Department applied to Vienna for particulars of the criminal police organisation in this city. In presence of the " Whitechapel murders," I have thought it might be of interest to ascertain how the Vienna police authorities haNe managed to detect the authors of almost every great crime committed in Vienna for the last 15 years. I find it is due in the first place to the strict enforcement of special regulations certifying the identity of all individuals staying in Vienna for more than 24 hours, and then to the nocturnal raids made periodically by the police. The Austrian officials have, however, a great pull over their English confreres. On suspicion of the vaguest kind they can effect wholesale arrests. Individual liberty is not taken into account, and it happens not unfrequently that, after some mysterious crime, half a neighbourhood is placed under police supervision. All strangers, immediately after their arrival in Vienna or any other Austrian town are presented with a tiAtet, whereon, in accordance with prescribed headings, they have to give a full account of themselves. Hotel-managers and lodging - house keepers are, in some measure, responsible for the strangers staying on their premises. They may at any moment be called upon to furnish ample particulars concerning the movements and pursuits of all persons harboured under their roof. Residents, whether native or foreign, are subject to a superivsion no less severe. Every change of abode, every temporary absence, every domestic change in the household, is registered with the greatest exactitude. The house-porter in private dwellings is expected to be posted up in the sayings and doings of every inmate, and, should circumstances require it, to give information to the authorities. Furthermore, scores of detectives lounge about the streets, ca,f,S, and places of public tesort. They go about in the tram. ways, omnibuses, local trains, and steamers—they are übiquitous. There is no escaping their vigilant eye and quick ear. The nocturnal police-raids have in numerous cases proved to be of the greatest advantage. The operating force—sometimes several hundred strong —assembles at various points, and, at a given moment,spreads in detachments over every quarter of the capital. They sweep through the streets, and, like avenging angels, their object seems to be to dr' ve forth from paradise fallen humanity. They visit the " slums" the _public-houses, and nightrefuges of the poor. They rouse the sleepers, huddled together by hundreds under the 51!1110 roof, and submit them to a rigorous cross-exammation. They ferret out the rootless vagrants reposing under bridges and viaducts, or in public gardens and squares. Outposts are stationed beyond the city confines to prevent the escape of fugitive vagabonds, and every individual who cannot convince the raiders instantly of his innocence is marched off to. the lock-up. Whenever a mysterious crime is cemmitted one of these nocturnal raids is organised, and frequently it not only leads to the capture of the lawbreaker, but brings to justice many a minor offender.  At Dewsbury on Friday, Messrs. Abraham Marshall and Sen, woollen manufacturers, Morley, Yorkshire, were tined £l2 and costs, for allowing eight women and four young persons to work 14 minutes before the time set out by the Factory Act.