"Circus" in Manhattan

The procedure of befuddling a speak-easy visitor and inducing him to sign checks, often raised later, is known in the underworld as "giving him the circus." Circus victims, part of whose money goes to the taxicab driver who steers them to the evil retreat, are usually so ashamed of themselves afterward that they fail to report to the police. This racket, Police Commissioner Edward P. Mulrooney told the New York Bond Club two months ago, is one which the police are particularly anxious to stamp out. His speech did not fall on entirely deaf ears. Last week one New Yorker with the courage of his indiscretions, Henry C. Murphy of the Curb Exchange, appeared before the Prohibition Administrator with the information that he had been detained in a Manhattan West Side saloon for 48 hours, liquored, doped, threatened, made to sign $2,000 worth of checks. Three Prohibition agents accompanied Broker Murphy to the place, arrested three startled men and two women for violating the Prohibition Act. Well pleased, Commissioner Mulrooney's men started building up evidence for a kidnapping charge against the prisoners, a crime punishable in New York with from 20 years to life imprisonment.

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