The Underbelly Down Under
Rough around the edges and savouring the pre-war era, Australia’s New South Wales in the early years of the 20th century was a place where prostitution, gambling, narcotics and guns were not just tolerated, but in most instances legal. But in 1905, the country’s government began to slowly erode away all the bad habits its inhabitants had clung to for comfort.
A combination of laws passed such as the Vagrancy Act of 1902, the Gambling and Betting Act of 1906, The Police Offences (Amendment) Act of 1908, the Liquor Act of 1916 and the Dangerous Drugs Amendment Act of 1927 made street prostitution, gambling and alcohol sales after 6pm illegal. Thanks to an ever-increasing anti-narcotics movement, chemists and small-time traffickers were put out of business. With the sales of sex, drugs and alcohol driven underground, criminals flocked together like birds of a feather.
Australian tabloids, latching onto the Al Capone era that was plaguing America on the other side of the globe, declared East Sydney was “the Chicago of the South” and a “breeding place of vice”. Australia would draw a lot of parallels to the US and its Prohibition Era as it mirrored the strict laws imposed regarding the sales and distribution of alcohol on its civilians.
In the wake of a revolution for transport, the eastern part of the capital resembled shantytowns when newer and flashier homes in other areas of the city attracted the working class. As Larry Writer summarised in his book Razor: A True Story of Slashers, Gangsters, Prostitutes and Sly Grog, the areas that commonly became known as ‘Razorhurst’ were born from an “ill-starred confluence of between-the-wars social conditions, well intended but wrong-headed laws and a truly extraordinary group of ambitious and ruthless crime entrepreneurs determined to cash in on the vices of beloved Australians.” Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Wooloomooloo, Paddington and King’s Cross districts became the
