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Australian Desperadoes by Smyth, Terry

ISBN: 9780143782377 PUBLISHER: Ebury Australia FORMAT: Paperback PAGES: 336 PUBLICATION DATE: 3.07.2017 DIMENSIONS: 23.5 x 15.5 x 2.9 centimetres

DESCRIPTION: The Coves San Francisco's first organisedcrime gang were Australians men and women with criminal careers in Australia who had come to the US, mostly illegally, during the gold rush. The Coves had come not to dig for gold but to unleash a crime wave the likes of which America had never seen. Robbery, murder, arson and extortion were the Coves' stockintrade, and it was said that the leader of the gang, Jim Stuart, had killed more men than any man in California. The gang's base, in the waterfront district, came to be known as Sydney Town. The area was a nogo zone for police many of whom were in Stuart's pocket anyway so, just as Capone would one day rule Chicago, the Coves ruled San Francisco. And more than once, just to make sure there was no doubt that Frisco was their town, they burnt it down. The Coves were hated and feared by the respectable citizens of San Francisco who derisively called them 'Sydney Ducks' but never to their faces and, realising that the forces of the law could not, or would not, take them on, decided lynch law was the only solution, and formed a vigilante group. The streets of San Francisco became a battlefield as the Coves and the vigilantes fought for control of the city, with gunfights and lynchings almost daily spectacles as the police stood idly by. Jim Stewart was arrested in Sacramento for killing a sheriff, but escaped to be involved in one the most celebrated cases of mistaken identity in

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