Chapter I 'When Murder Stalks the City Streets' the Rise of The
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I6 Chapter I 'When Murder Stalks the City Streets' The Rise of the Underworld in 1920sSydney The city of Sydney has endured violent and criminal episodesfrom the time of European settlement.The larrikin pusheswere responsiblefor some of the most infamous of theseduring the late-nineteenthto early-twentieth centuries when they terrorised many of its citizens. Vandalising, bashing, thieving and even, on occasion, raping and murdering,r from the late 1870sthese gangsof young men, and some of their female followers, were being describedby the Bulletin magazineas belonging to 'a Larrikin organisation'.Over-indulgence in alcohol was blamed for much of the mayhemcreated by the pushesbut during the yearsfollowing the end of World War I in 1918, gang-relatedcrime and violent conflicts gradually took on a different character,and becamea regular featureof the streetsof inner-Sydney.2 The formation of a criminal milieu in the city at this time was influenced powerfully by the cultural, demographicand social changesthat occurred following the war. Not the least of thesewas the rapid increasein the population of the city. Many of Sydney'snew residentscame from rural areasand settledin the inner-city suburbs,some of which were alreadyoverpopulated. 'alarming'.3 The extent of the drift from country to city was viewed as Indeed, many of the criminals who came to the attention of law enforcementofficers in the twenties travelled to Sydney from suchplaces as Narromine, Dubbo and Tamworth. The suddeninflux of young men in particular causedspecific problems for a police force that was chronically understaffedand unpreparedfor the new breed of gun-toting criminal that was emerging.The attemptsof police, legislators,clergymen and othersto gain control in a situation that seemedto be getting out of hand by the end of the 1920sencompassed such diverse tactics as slum clearance,undercover police operativesin elaboratedisguises, prohibitive legislation, the trialling of new methodsof imprisonmentand, finally, draconianlaws. J. Murray, Larrikins: 19thCentury Outrage (LansdownePress, Melboume, 1973),pp.169-79. SeeG. Morgan,'The Bulletin and the Larrikin: Moral Panic in Late NineteenthCentury Sydney',Media International Australia, No. 85, November 1997,pp. 18-21. P. Spearritt,Sydney s Century:A History (IINSW Press,Sydney, 2000), W.3-4. l7 Il1 this chapter I shall canvassthe many elementsthat contributedto the growth of the 1920scriminal milieu in Sydney.Prominent among thesewere the various piecesof legislation that were gradually introduced from the beginning of the century and which seemedto many ordinary citizens to limit unnecessarily and unfairly their opportunities for various forms of recreation.Much of this regulation,especially in the areasof alcohol, gambling and prostitution, had a 'wowserish'component that was clearly aimed at improving the morals and respectability of the averagewage-earner and at bringing them more into line with the standardsof behaviour 'them expectedof them by middle-classobservers. This tendencynaturally intensified a and us' dichotomy that was reflected on the streets,in the media and in the courtrooms.The situation also opened the door to the unscrupulouselements in the community who saw the chanceto becomewealthy: sly-grog sellers,brothel operators,two-up schoolsand standovermen all took advantage of these expanding opportunities. The underlying social fabric in Sydney was complicatedby many other factors:the influx of disaffectedyoung men returning from the war; the overcrowdedliving conditionsin the inner-city suburbs;the increasingpopularity of cocaine as a recreationaldrug; the liberation of women in the public sphere;and the mutual relationship being cultivated betweenthe media and the police. The latter enableda situation to developthat made the 1920sripe for a major episodeof moral panic. The circumstancesin Sydneywere not unique, being reflected in many other cities in the western world. However, I aim to show how these factors combined to enable the formation of a criminal milieu that, by the end of the decade,was heavily involved in organisedcrime. The inner-city suburbsof Surry Hills and Darlinghurst and their close environs such as Redfem and Woolloomooloo, madeup the locale that was to becomeinfamous by the end of the decade.Surry Hills was one area in which gangs of hoodlums had long been in the habit of congregating.In the days of the pushes it was claimed the larrikins of Millers Point were 'gentlemen'compared to those of Frog Hollow, a notorious part of Surry Hills.a Described variously by late-nineteenthcentury commentators as 'styesand stews','nests of vice and fever', 'Frog Hollow. Tales of the Early Days. City Slum Doomed',Sun, 13 September1923,p. 10. 18 and 'moral plague spots',sthe slums of Sydney were marked down for demolition to be replacedwith the shopsand warehousesthought more suited to a progressive,modem city.6 In 1919,when membersof the Board of Trade visited Surry Hills and adjacentworking-class areas during their inquiry into the cost of living, they found many of the inhabitants living in wretched, cramped and filthy conditions. Drainage from the houses flowed down the centre of streets and through backyards;cottages had no floorboards,their tatteredfloor coveringsbeing laid directly on asphalt;baths were taken in roofless lean-tos; and atleastone squaliddwelling of four rooms housed a family of eleven. Many backyardswere lucky to receive an hour of sunlight per day becauseof the height of surroundingbuildings.T Photographs of the area show narrow streets with front doors opening straight onto the [email protected], where they exist, are cramped 'dunny' and cheerless,usually housing the outdoor and the clothesline, any remaining space choked by weeds. Women labour with their bags of shopping up the sloping streetsor steep wooden stairwaysto reach the top of the sandstoneescarpment; men lounge in doorways,and barefoot children scroungefirewood, collect bottles, play marbles and push homemadewooden carts along the paths and roadways,accompanied by assorteddogs. The dirty surrounds,broken fences, grimy windows and piled-up rubbish in backyardsand vacant allotments seemof little concern to the residents going about their daily business, but undoubtedly shocked the 'respectable'Sydney citizen.8 Until its gentrification in the late-twentieth century, the reputation of the slums, dark alleyways and narrow brothel-lined streetsof Surry Hills and its environs inspired a mixture of fascinationand fear in those'respectable' Sydney residents. They were well awarethat suchslum conditions were conducive to crime. Housewives, claimed the ReverendTugwell, vicar of St Peter's at Woolloomooloo, spent their days sitting on their doorsteps,taking no interest in 'Tlnough the City Styesand StewsA Mayoral Visit. Nests of Vice and Fever', EN,27 May 1880; and Rev. Dr Ellis quotedin'The Rookeriesof Sydney',DT, l0 May 1881both quotedin A. Mayne, Representingthe Slum: Popular Journaltsm in a Late NineteenthCentury Clfi (History Department,University of Melboume,Parkville, 1991), p. 127 and,p.143. 6 Mayne,op. cit.,pp. 101-2. 7 'sydney's Slums. Inspectionby Board of Trade. WretchedLiving Condixions',SMH,l9 Septemberl9l9,p. 9. See,for instance,photographs in P. Doyle, with C. Williams, Cily of Shadows:Sydney Police Photographs 1912-1948 (Historic HousesTrust of New South Wales, Sydney, 2005); Max Kelly, Faces of the Street (Doak Press,Paddington, 1982); and C. Keating, Surry Hills: The City's Backyard (Hale & Iremonger, Sydney,1991). I9 housework or the upkeep of their homes,while the men sought refuge from such insalubrious surroundingsin sly-grog shops and gambling dens. He advocatedthe establishmentof public housing in a garden-stylevillage, modelled on a similar scheme in Britain.e Tugwell's was certainly a middle-classattitude but the point he was trying to make is no doubt correct.The drab and cramped living conditions drove men, women and children out on to the streets and sometimesinto trouble. During the 1920songoing efforts were made to clear out the worst slum areasof Surry Hills, by gradually resuming the dwellings of Frog Hollow and some of the other unsavoury parts of the suburb. These resumptionscontinued throughout the decadeuntil a clearedsite of over seven acres remained on which was eventually built the Sydney Police Centre. Council, however,with an eye to economic advantage,gazetled the remaining resumedland for factories and warehouses,leaving the dispossessedresidents to find housingelsewhere. Tugwell's 'garden- style village' was probably out of the question given the topography of Ihe area,which had always been unsuitablefor housing with its steepsandstone cliffs and swampy ground.lOMany families with the meansto do so joined the 1920sexodus to the newly-developedsuburbs such as those in the outer-westernareas of Canterburyand Bankstown.ll But in general,few in the Suny Hills area could afford to move so far from their places of work and insteadthey simply took up residencein other nearby 'crampedand wretched' dwellings. Some were undoubtedly very attachedto their homes and local communities and remained in the area largely for that reasonbut there were also residentswho suffered a degreeof shamefor the rest of their lives becauseof the reputationof the suburbin which they were forced to continue1iving.12 Despitethe resumptionsand clearing of the worst of the dwellings, colourful newspaper storiesand headlinessuch as 'Wolves of Surry Hills Hunt in Packs',kept alive the myth of that