MEN OF THE UNDERWORLD The Professional Criminals' Own Story.

Hardback. An autobiographical history of American crime from the highwaymen to "syndicated sex", vast organised rackets, and political corruption. The author has linked the criminals' stories together with biographical and background meterial, but the greater part of the book consists of selections from their own autobiographies. From Henry Tufts, horse thief, who wrote the first American crimal's autobiography in 1807, they pour out their confessions. The author's selection works forward in time over a century and a half. His earliest examples are taken from the era of the expanding frontier - the era of highwaymen, horse thieves, river gamblers etc. On the whole their pickings were small, and it was not until after the civil War, America's wealth began to rocket that her criminals came into their own. The next half century was the era of the bank robber, the forger, the train robber etc. Gradually they too were superseded: and so we come to the Prohibition period and the beginning of the big mobs, who began with bootlegging and hijhacking and went on into the vast organised rackets. The book's next section covers first hand accounts of prison experiences, coming lastly to the 'new type' of prison which had been established and the prospect of reducing crime and reforming criminals. With Glossary, Bibliog. and Index. 336pp. 8vo. h/back. Vg+ with dw. loosely inserted in 2 parts, with lge pieces missing from fr. part.