The World Without End

The world without end, that forever blends.

Saturday's NYT, Michael Wilson's 'Crime Scene' column. An entertaining tale of Gypsies in the 1950s and 60s in New York City, flim-flam, pursuit, extradition, and people who later become famous.

Why does Mr. Wilson's column about detective Allen Gore sound familiar? Mr. Gore, a long-ago detective in New York City's squad of detectives known as the Pickpocket and Confidence Squad has written an e-mail about psychics in New York City. A particularly large 1956 fleecing looms large in his memory and takes center stage. Mr. Gore is now 85, so bravo to him for keeping up with technology, however he did it.

Where else have I read about detectives from this squad keeping their own files on Gypsies and using their reference material to keep track of them as they tried to bring them through the criminal justice system, usually for fraud and larceny?

One of Mr. Joseph Mitchell's long-form pieces titled 'The Gypsy Women,' 1955, is a seminal piece about their activities in New York City, and the efforts of a then retired police captain Daniel J. Campion in instructing the next generation of New York cops on the Gypsy's way of seeing the world. One of Mr. Campion's eager learners is detective Allen Gore.

It's a great 'Crime Scene' piece that screams for more space. By linking Mr. Mitchell's piece we get a view of the pursuit of Gypsies prior to detective Gore tracking Volga Adams, from Madam Lillian's parlor to Alabama and eventually hauling her back, via Florida, to New York for trial in 1963.

And then there can be the link to the future when it is revealed in the 'Crime Scene' piece that the prosecutor in the 1963 trial was Burton B. Roberts. Mr. Roberts goes on to become a long-time Bronx DA, judge, and a central character in Thomas Wolfe's novel, 'The Bonfire of the Vanities,' the tale of how the jury system in the Bronx is used as a means to redistribute the wealth.

Mr. Roberts also sheds Volga Adams's Gypsy curse of eternal bachelorhood at the age of 59, some 18 years after her trial.  At the age of 88 he passed away, survived by his wife Gerhild.

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