Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1913 — 30,000 THIEVES IN ODESSA [ARTICLE]

30,000 THIEVES IN ODESSA

Chief of Police Declares It to Be the “Most Dishonest Town on Earth.” St. Petersburg.—" Odessa is the most dishonest town on earth” is the assertion of its police chief in accounting for the rarity of arrests and the frequency of burglaries. There are, he says, no fewer than 30,000 thieves in the city, 16 per cent of the population, and the women thieves far outnumber the men. The harvest time for the transgressors la in the summer, when all who can afford to leave Odessa in fear of the cholera. Then a round of burglaries starts with which the authorities are utterly unable to cope. One day recently there were no fewer than 364 cases against thievery and the like down for hearing in the local courts. The arrests number about a score a day. Sentences for theft are light, as it would be to expensive otherwise. It is now proposed to transport the worst of the prisoners.