The Razor Gang Wars
By 1927, the cunning, ambitious and ruthless Kate Leigh, Tilly Devine,
Phil 'The Jew' Jeffs and Norman Bruhn were unchallenged as
Razorhurst's major crime bosses. For a while they were content to live
and let live. Kate's territory was Surry Hills, where she ran sly grog and
dealt in cocaine and stolen goods, Tilly's beat was brothels in
Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and Wolloomooloo. Jeffs specialties were
drugs, gambling and sly grog in the Cross and the 'Loo.
Bruhn and his razor gang monstered small-time vice purveyors in Kings
Cross and Darlinghurst: freelance prostitutes, drug peddlers and
low-rent two-up schools and sly-groggers unallied to Leigh, Devine or
Jeffs. For a time, none encroached on another's turf or activity. Then in
early 1927, the thieves fell out - and all hell broke loose.
It was Bruhn who first split from the ranks. Bruhn and Hayes first held up
one of Phil Jeffs sly-grog shops, in Liverpool Street. On 6 June, Hayes was
gunned down in Liverpool Street. Passing taxi driver Jack Edelman pursued
the shooter's limousine and took its number, then returned to where the
victim lay unconscious and bleeding. Police, acting on Edelman's
information, traced the getaway car and charged Phil Jeffs henchman Tom
Kelly with malicious wounding.
Bruhn and his gang then stormed onto one of Kate Leigh's sly-grog shops in
Liverpool Street and, razors flashing, took the proprietor's nights taking,
100 pounds of the man's own money and a stash of jewelry. A few nights
later they returned to Liverpool Street and extorted stolen money from one
of Kate Leigh's thieves. When she learned of the heist Kate Leigh totted up
the money Bruhn had once more cost her and seethed.
|
|
And so... the vendetta gets fiercer... Its
climax may come in a wild campaign of
shooting any night, as the mystery
gangsters, once elusive, shady and
unknown, are now easily identifiable by
those who have sworn to 'get' them. The
'Midnight Raper' has other names,
ordinary names, but they do not count
much, as a criminal changes his title
about five times a week if it suits him.
There are others identifiable by
nicknames, too, one of them of snowy
white locks who is called 'Nigger', and
yet another who is referred to more often
that not as 'The Jew'. The reputed leader
[of the worst gang] is a Melbourne man
who absconded from bail and bolted for
Sydney after he had been committed for
trial... And so, known to the police and
known to their victims, the gangsters prowl
through the shadows, and even into the
light of day, spreading supreme terror as
they go, and never fearing that the
processes of the law may be set against
them.
Truth Newspaper, 1927
|
 |
