But in the 1920s and 1930s it was the turn of the "razor gangs" of inner city Sydney to dominate the streets and grab the headlines. For a time Darlinghurst became known as "Razorhurst".
The early decades of the twentieth century saw a vigorous temperance movement in Australia. Churches, prominent citizens and "wowsers" of all descriptions prevailed upon the legislators to pass a series of laws clamping down on cocaine, which up until that time had been freely available at pharmacies, alcohol, limiting the trading hours of pubs (although stopping short of complete prohibition), gambling and prostitution. But it proved misguided. As author Larry Writer says, "The 1920s was a decade-long party wedged between the carnage of World War I and the desolation of the Great Depression." Having endured years of hardship, Aussie punters weren't about to forego their favourite vices. Instead of stamping them out, the new laws simply drove these pleasures underground - and in the process made a whole generation of resourceful and ruthless crooks wealthy.
Kate Leigh was born on the drought-ravaged far plains of western New South Wales, in the cattle town of Dubbo, to a poor rural family. But she had no intention of following in her mother's dusty footsteps. She might not have had much in the way of formal education but she did possess a sharp brain, good looks, heaps of ambition - and not too many scruples. By her mid teens she had made the long journey to the city's bright lights and was hawking her voluptuous young body on the streets of Sydney. By twenty she was an accomplished thief. By thirty she had done serious prison time. And by thirty-five she was running her own gang of thieves and drug pushers, and had opened a series of "sly groggeries" where punters could get a drink after hours (if they were willing to pay her exorbitant prices). Rich beyond the dreams of simple folks like her parents, Kate Leigh was the undisputed crime queen of Sydney.
And then along came Tilly Devine…
Born in a London slum, cockney Tilly was, like Kate, selling her body by age fifteen. And, like Kate, she too was ambitious, ruthless and cunning as a shithouse rat. Speaking of rats, whenever Tilly had money she would spend it on gaudy clothes and cheap jewellery – the expression "flash as a rat with gold tooth" might have been coined for her! When she was sixteen she met a beefy Aussie soldier on leave from the battlefields of western Europe in London, fell in love, married him and followed him halfway around the world to Sydney - where she went straight back on the game! Big Jim Devine was broadminded enough to allow other blokes to sleep with his new bride – provided they paid for the privilege and he got the lion's share of the loot! But before long Tilly saw a business opportunity whereby she could earn a quid standing up. She shrewdly took advantage of a loophole in New South Wales' prostitution laws that forbad men from owning brothels, but not women, moved into management and opened her first "establishment". Then another … and another … and another! At her peak she was operating a mind boggling forty bawdy houses.
Even Blind Freddie could see Tilly was threatening Kate Leigh's title of Sydney's vice queen. And Kate didn't like that. A tit-for-tat feud broke out. Kate, whose motto was "retaliate first", assisted by her gang of thugs, took every opportunity to harass Tilly's working girls. Tilly recruited her own toughs and started raiding Kate's sly grog shops, ripping them off and sabotaging them. The history books may not agree, but in the winter of 1927 the Second World War broke out in Sydney!