In New York

Another agent of Irving ("Waxey Gordon") Wexler. whose wide interests include theatrical promotion (Strike Me Pink), liquor and an indictment for $400,000 tax evasion, was shot down as he got out of a bus in The Bronx last week. Owen Victor ("Owncy") Madden, best known Manhattan racketeer, whose Staten Island brewery is reportedly now operating legally, was let out of Sing Sing, where he had been since last July for violation of parole. In his pocket was $17.52 he had made growing carnations and jonquils.

In the past three months, 34 gangsters have been murdered in and about New York City as a result of inter-gang competition in labor union, bootlegging, narcotic and other routine rackets. But it was not New York City's gangsters who made news last week. It was their widows.

"Rat!" Vincent ("Mad Dog") Coll was the kind of a gangster that big gangsters mortally fear. He was out to make his reputation as a killer, and he figured that the ratio of his own importance would increase with the importance of the criminals he killed. He had leaders like Owney Madden quite nervous until two men put the finger on him in a telephone booth last winter.

Just before sudden death overtook him. Mad Dog Coll took to wife Lottie Kreisberger, a small brunette who publicly promised to reform her hoodlum mate. After his death Mrs. Coll appears to have given up all thought of reform, for she was once arrested for carrying a gun and last week was indicted for murder in The Bronx.

Joseph Ventre, a cheap little crook indicted with the dead gunman's widow, was not long in telling the police the whole story. He and a man named Pace had been living with Mrs. Coll. They had been supporting themselves by petty stickups until Mrs. Coll. accustomed to doughtier deeds, urged them to "give up this five-and-ten-cent-store business." Thereupon the trio tried to abduct a jeweler, who surprised them by running swiftly down the street instead of getting in their car. Pace went flying after him, wildly firing a revolver. The jeweler escaped unscathed, but a youthful bystander named Mollie Schwartz lucklessly and fatally stopped one of the slugs.

Mrs. Coll had not been married into the underworld for nothing. She resolutely refused to give any in formation, and when confronted with Ventre, classically cried: "So you squealed, you rat!"

Joker. Not tragicomic, but like a pathetic and futile story by Morley Callaghan. was last week's tale of Alice Kenny Schiffer Diamond. She married Jack ("Legs") Diamond (a consumptive gunman who was destined to be gangland's clay pigeon before he died), in 1917 after he had deserted the Army.

As the years rolled on Mrs. Diamond, a phlegmatic woman with a stupid loose mouth, grew fat. Her husband got to going around with chorus girls, one in particular called Marion Strasmick whose program name was Kiki Roberts. It generally turned out that whereas Diamond was shot in bed with Miss Roberts, it was Mrs. Diamond who nursed him through his convalescence. Mrs. Diamond was not only immensely good-natured. She was a great joker. In their summer home near Acra she rigged up an electric chair. Her husband was against the idea. In December 1931 Diamond was acquitted of the charge of torturing an up- state cider truckman. He left Mrs. Diamond and some friends who were giving him a party to attend a "press conference" at 1 a. m. The press conference was held in Kiki Roberts' Albany apartment. Shortly after he got back to his own boardinghouse he was shot for the last time. Mrs. Diamond toured in small-time vaudeville for a while, giving a short lecture on what a misunderstood man her husband had been. Then she drifted into burlesque. The final low of her theatrical career was hit at Coney Island in a sideshow. When not on duty she liked to go to the shooting galleries. Kiki Roberts, who is pretty, did considerably better in hei vaudeville appearances. This spring Mrs. Diamond got to drinking, and when she drank she talked. In a Brooklyn speakeasy the fat and garrulous widow would boast that she was "tired protecting a lot of mugs." Last week some mug put a .38 revolver very close to her temple and killed her. The superintendent, with whose family she liked to play cards, and two painters found her. She had admitted her murderer in an old house dress and stockinged feet. She had been dead two days. Her two little griffons were wild with hunger. There was $1 in her purse. Around the gaudy little room, all red plush and doll pillows, there were many photographs of skinny little Jack Diamond. One was inscribed: "My Hero."

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