A LARGE and uneasy crowd watched the knife battle in
Soho between 'Jack Spot' and Albert Dimes; both men were severely wounded, spattering the pavements over which they struggled with blood. Yet they have both been acquitted, moving the Daily Mail to pronounce editorially that 'there was no fight. no wounds, no blood. A court of law has said so.' Is there. then, reason to grow alarmed for the reputation of British justice? Certainly not by comparison with what has been happening in the court at Sumner, Mississippi—a travesty of justice that has shocked American, as well as world, opinion. But this Soho affair has shown on a smaller scale the difficulty of administering the law in a district where two sets of rules are acknowledged : first, the mob law of protection gangs, and only second, the law of the land. It was obvious from the evi- dence in the trials that not only the principals, but also most of the chorus of bystanders, felt that this fight was nothing to do with the police; it was a private Soho party. Evidently Soho is due for another of its periodic clean-ups; and • for once the Home Secretary has acted with promptness and wisdom in chivvying the Metropolitan Police into action.
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