Violence, or the threat of violence, sometimes made itself evident in spectacular ways. Gangs of up to two hundred heavily armed youths were seen storming barns in the countryside and carrying off the produce. Yet, despite this atmosphere of barely controllable criminality, convictions for wounding fell from 113,000 in 1913 to a mere 35,000 in 1923, and there was a comparable fall in other categories of crime not directly related to theft. Almost everybody seemed to be concentrating on stealing small amounts of food and supplies in order to stay alive.
