26 JANUARY 1929, Page 2

One hundred and two robberies and four murders in One

week have made the Chicago police take sweeping action. Last Sunday' night they arrested three thousand people. " Never mind ' injunctions. If you are barred, grab an axe and chop your way in," were the instructions to the raiding squads. But 'it seems that- most of the leading gangsters escaped. We are so accustomed to•hearing of the Chicari bandits that we hardly appreciate the significance of these figures. Yet we have only to think of the. consternation which such a manifestation of crime as that of one week, in Chicago would cause in London to understand how much we owe to the swift certainty of our penal code, to the men who enforce it, and to the British public's respect .for law and order, 5 * • * 5