TUNGCHOW PIRACY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 33, 8 February 1935, Page 3

TUNGCHOW PIRACY

STEAMER AT SHANGHAI

CHILDREN TELL PARENTS

GKEAT ADVENTUKE

United Press Association—By Electtlo' .Teleerapti—Copyright. 'SHANGHAI, February 7. The steamer Tungchow returned here today after the recent piracy carrying the 70 foreign children safe and sound. Cheers greeted the vessel, followed by the singing of hymns, while a number of parents knelt on the cold wharf j in silent prayer. j The children displayed the. greatest exuberance and were bursting to tell their parents of their adventures in the pirates' hands. Little Joy Hayman, daughter of the New Zealand missionary now in the hands of Communists in Kweichow, with her brothers, Theodore and Andrew, greeted their mother, who last August was also in the" hands of Communists but was released. ' Joy clung to a basket containing white rabbits, exclaiming: "The pirates didn't eat my bunnies; I kept them with me all.the time." •• Many children carried as souvenirs cartridge cases and unsigned banknotes of the Bank of China, which the pirates scattered on the deck after finding them of no value. ;

Consular authorities and police started an immediate investigation on the piracy, which will form the subject of a special report to the House of Commons. . .

•A report reaching British Naval authorities at Hong Kong states that the Chinese police had a brush with the Tuhgchow pirates in the Swabue region, after which two bundles of bank-notes, part of the loot from the Tungchow, were picked up, but there is no news of the actual piratesl Lieutenant-Commander R. F. Barry, British Naval Anti-piracy Officer, proceeded to Canton- on the invitation of the Chinese authorities to join the Anglo-Chinese talks on piracy suppression.