THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY
UGUST 19 1938.
SIX MEN TURN BEGGING INTO £4,500,000 RACKET Gangster Rule
In
Streets
By HOWARD FRENCH
When any body drops a copper or two into the hat of pathetic-looking street musician in England, they are probably contributing to the fortunes of six London gangsters who are running a racket with a turnover of at least £4,500,000 a year.
These six men are the organisers of the troupes of pro- fessional beggars which infest London and are now spreading to the provinces. They all make many thousands a year for themselves.
prevent
I have been investigating this racket and have found a gang United States-except that the world equal to anything in the British gangsters do not carry guns. But they have their own alang, they employ rough-necks to "beat up" rivals, use vans and fast cars for transport and few, if any, of them pay income taxi.
me, It is not right," he said. "Those Our lows of libel
Hardly aren't musicians. from giving you the names of these gongs gangsters because there is nothing any of them can play. I play the illegal in organising bands of street same aluff in the streets as on the entertainment, and it musicians, but I can tell you how halls. It's
people appreciate it that's all right, they operate.
Ench of these gangsters has eight I don't pester people like the gang to ten bands of "musicians," crip-bottlers.
like ples,, biind men, and perhaps an in- struhentailst or two. The number this trumpeter, and the gangs are in a band varies from four to fit-doing their best to run them off the teen.
There are many little men
streets.
Each man is paid a guaranteed Fights take place in back alleys) every day. Obviously netther side wage of £4 a week.
The bands work from sun-up to can go to the police. sun-down, but not the men..Reliefsi are sent out to replace those who have done eight
streets.
hours an the
Few of these bands have more: than one or two men who can play
an instrument. The rest
raucous voices and take
chant in
turns at "bottling" they call. They' swarm over the puve-
collecting money
SECRET BOSSES
Few of the street touts know who are their masters.
Orders are given through inter- mediaries and wages are paid in parks, at rail stations and in vans
Da the men travel-never at an office or headquarters.
Battling the sudden surge of the Yellow River, which burst through its dikes and flooded a wide area in China, here are Japanese soldiers poling their way in bouts over what was once dry land. Chinese were reported to have cut the dikes to delay the Japanese advance.
JOAN PARSONS, 'Which way is Africa?' airgirl, stranded for four days in Tanganyika bushland after a forced landing on her lone Cape-England flight, here tells in her own story how she was ——
ALONE WITH
FOR TWO DAYS
Dar-es-Salaam (Tanganyika),
Miss Joan Parsons, thirty-one-year-old Leamington I have not heard of an income-ex-music teacher airgirl, lost in the Tanganyika bush for ments on both sides of the street, tax return being made, nor of a tax four days after a forced landing on her flight from the
Cape, flew to Nairobi from Iringa (Tanganyika).
enter shops and pester everyone.
THE DOUBLE-CROSS
of their own.
collector who has 21 sircet musiclun} on his books.
The
men never ask who are their The gangsters provide sealed col- lecting boxes, but the bands gene- hosses. They know it would not be rally double-cross their masters by safe.
fry are the adding one or two collecting-boxes Among the smaller
unorganised beggars thinly dis gulsed match-sellers, heather-i
513 sellers, and vocalists. Most of them make at least £3 a week, but an; A band starts out early in the eficient man can reach £7 to £10 morning and works, a railway sta- week. tion, bus or tube stop. The best pitches are in London's upper mid-
band of ten does not bring In £50 a week it is regarded as
failure.
a
dle class districts, such as Wimble-
MORE IN MATCHES
Before she left Iringa Miss Parsons told her own story.
On her lone flight home from the Cape Miss Parsons lost her bearings 200 miles east of Mbeya (Tangan- and came down in native territory yika,
international, I spoke to one well-set-up, mid-1
on, Cheam, Hampstead, or En- dle-aged match-seller in the Ken- Held.
sington district. He bore the con-
willing to accept any job.
As the rush hour ends a van col-ventional notice that he would lects them and takes them to the shopping districts of the West End the theatre and and, then on to restaurant areas. The van drivers earn £2 10s, a week.
"OLD MAN G'S WORK" Rough-necks guard the pitches and it an independent musician should start up he is almost sure of abenting.
be
When I offered to help him, he "How much would it be asked: worth?" I I explained that I might
That was only July 4. For four days there was no news of her. Then the Dar-es-Salaam district officer, Mr. T. O. Pike, Irish Rugby and found her, arranged for repairs to her plane and new suppiles of petrol. Here Is Miss Parsona's story:-
BY JOAN PARSONS
It was towards nightfall on July 4
be able to get him £3 a week, that I came down. I was intending
ho charmingly,
Larned to fly to Mbeya. I had just passed Quite
farover Chintenche airport. down the offer he makes
more than a hard-working clerk: Then I saw on unknown luke, and I realised I was completely off my
course.
and even £1 a day would not tempt him. Afterwards I learned that his case was
It was getting dark I knew I
landed safely.
would
fourteenth.
TRIBES Nazis To Free
Rothschild?
BANK NOW UNDER
COMMISSIONERS
Baran Louls
de
Rothschild,
held they
banker, Pike, who had reached my machine millionaire Austrian with supplies of petrol and oil, so I
prisoner by the Nazis since seized Austria, is to be freed accord- walked back again to the plane.
We spent two more days hereing to a report in the Daily Herald. This information has been received Eventually, on the waiting for a runway to be built.
with the engine running nicely, I by the Baren's relatives in France, decided to push on to Iringa-and it is stated in getting
crashed off I nearly again. In the take-off I flew dangerously .. but I just near the long as it, and at 4,000
clear managed to fect I saw the Iringa road.
He
Evans! Lifted 40
Tons
Baron Louis will be allowed to leave Austrin and is expected to join and Baron Eugene his brothers, Baron Alphonse, in Paris.
The Baron's liberation comes just a month after the revelation that he was being held for £2,000,000 ran- som by the Nazi authorities.
Herr Buerckel, Hitler's Viceroy in Austria, replied that he was being held for trial in connection with the Anstalt 1931 failure of the Crodit bank, of which he was president.
In spite of this--announcement.. however, the Nazis approached all' the European branches of the Roths- child family with their ransom pto- posals.
Now, apparently the Gestapo have Fireman James Evans, of Edin-discovered a dliterent way to attain
I I spoke to a trumpeter. He playing
rather well, but I noticed he frequently crops up for investigation would have to come down soon.
At 200 feet I failed to see some had a black eye.
"Got it over at Sutton, sir," he by the Charity Organisation Sucle- searched around for flat ground.
ty. People are, Impressed by his treo
stumps, and I felt sure wish said. "I refused to move off the gentlemanly appearance, and
overturn, but But he remains *
I thought I would have to spend burgh Fire Brigade, the strongest their financial ends, saya the Daily
man in the world at his weight, Herald. plich when 'Old Man G's bullies to help him.
olf night in this bushland. match-seller.
saw smashed all world weight-lighting I Kave me the thumb."
After Then he told his story. He
twenty minutes me
"DOING" THE COUNTRY
approaching endurance records by a terrifle mar tribesmen native plays on the halls when he gets the
that gin. I signtiled c. Medley, of the stealthily, Captain D. London Mendicity Society, estimates
wanted somewhere to sleep. They understood, and took me off me letter offering that there are roughly 5,000 pro- him £4 a week in one of the gang fessional beggars JEL London. Of to a hut in an empty mission station.
through the This busker refused to entertain courts each year, nearly half have When I got to the hut I found the project although he earns by been before the magistrate before, there was no bed there. So I slept
and on rush couch.
chance and takes
when he is "resting."
He showed
bands.
to the
mself only £3 a week.
streets
Glostora
Just a few drops on your brush make your hair more beautiful. It keeps the wave and curl in, looves your hair easy to manage, so that it will stay any style you ar range it.
Get a bottle today, and note the difference.
the 1,000 who pass
I think Captain Med- Personally, ley's estimate is conservative,
my investigations give me a figure nearer 7,000.
When Baron Louis was arrested all the foreign holdings of the family bank in Vienna were seized by the Nazis.
were
In six hours he raised 10,850 pounds (more than 40 tons) shatter-
that these It is suggested ing a record of 50,000 pounds.
Steadily throughout the afternoon.about equivalent to the £2,000,000 ransom which the Hitlerites origin- Evans raised the equivalent of a ten
ally demanded. above his head every eight minutes. At each lift Evans raised a bar of The natives made me understand 140 lb., his own weight, above his I would have to write to the mis-head in a "push up" six times. Then, slonaries for help.
carrying it on his shoulders, he per- formed 10 knee bends.
Seven times every hour Evans in few this lift. performed
each minutes interval between he sipped orange julee.
A fair average taking would be I wrote my letter and the runner about £7 a week, making £49,000 did the first twenty miles in seven two days before a week from Londoners alone. You hours, but it was may reasonably almost double that the letter reached its destination
figure to include the provinces. I stayed those two days in the
Many of there beggars travel the provinces.
hut.
On the third day I decided to get The vans take the gangs musl-off to the nearest mission station. clans from town to town through-This was at Mpanga, twenty miles
Dway, 1 walked it.
out the country.
LOOPHOLE IN THE LAW There is no Act of Parliament covering the whole country which)
the musicians, match- prevents sellers and the rest of the horde
their from
vast out carrying
"sponge."
Under the Vagrancy Act of 1824 you may not ber alms in the street, but there is nothing to prevent you offering, music or matches for sule. And that is how the gangsters get round the law.
solved
The City of London has
#
ROTHSCHILD BANK
The Munich bank of Merck, Fink and Co. has been appointed commis- sloners of the Rothschild Bank and properties in Austria, the Daily Tele- graph reports.
The bank of Morck and Finck has "I am not doing this to break re-
German banks cords," he said, "but to show that is organised several nonsense to say weight lifting blunder the Nazi regime, and is now for the heart.”
After his six hours of lifting Evans believed to be the largest private
bank in Germany.
On July 12 a letter came from Mr. had a swim.
Teachers Are Snobs,
Snobs, Says No-
Master
Discipline
Mr. A. S. Neill, author and child psychologist, who runs no-discipline school in Suffolk, shocked 1,000 Co. Durham educa- In 1911 it obtained un Act of Par- tionists at Durham last month with such declarations as:
the problem thoroughly.
llament called the City
of London Various Powers Act, under which!
"I am rather afraid of teachers,
n
to street trading WRE restricted
"I could swear for having to make myself respectable before those
Д granted
and certificate badge by the City Police, In 1911 you wearing a collar and tie.
"I have never worn auch things for three years. With my none since. There is no begging in freedom I shall now take the blamed things off." the City.
700-certificates were given. and
Will Bequeaths Child
Redwood City, Cal.
the standards they are expected to live up to.
"I have 10 members of my staff for 71 children. One is a converted Communist.
"I smoke all day in school "when
I am teaching. The teachers smoke, too as well as the children,
"If a child can call you a silly 262 serious about this. You cannot get pilne." sincerity from a child under discl-
then you are a teacher. I am quite
[Mr. Nelll removed his collar and tie preparatory to an hour's speech:]
What you teach in school is absolute nonsense and of no value except for the few people who want to be specialists.
drill Then Alderman W. Smith, chair- "The teachers are simply
man of the County Education Com- The will of the late Mrs Anna "There is too much intellect and Gelte disclosed the fact that she had not enough emotion in the school, sergents
"They are there to make people mitice, spoke. "I have to move a not only willed away her property
Laughter. in the customary legal manner but You cannot have freedom without
Mr. Neill was still there. that she had also willed away the emotion. The result is that people obedient and, I should think, stupla vote of thanks he began umid possession of her 9-year-old adopted come out of school after being taught as well.
completely know what it is about them. I think can move a vote of consuro if you daughter to friends. Her husband is reading writing, and vulgar fractions Teachers are mobs. I do not
with their remotions
It is something inhuman because of wish," he parried. contesting the right to will away a thwarted.
"You
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