THEETS ABOARD SHIPS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 July 1920, Page 4

THEETS ABOARD SHIPS

PASSENGERS REACH SYDNEY WITHOUT LUGGAGE.

(SYDNEY, J u*o 23

One of the most remarkable—and annoying—features of the post-war crimewave is the persistent and apparently unchecked thieving which goes on aboard’ ships- Everyone knows that pillage of cargo is rampant, but it is not so well known that passengers, unless they exercise the utmost jeare, wilt have thoir luggage and even their pockets rilled. Petty thieving is particularly bad in the inter-Slate ships and something of what oversea travellers live to put up with was told in the Police Court this week. A greaser off the Hororata was charged with stealing clothing and other luggage, of 'the value of £IOO, the property of diaries Dowdesell.

Dowdesell, a returned soldier, who had been badly wounded in the mouth, said that, with his wife, lie arrived in Sydney last week by the Hororata. Just before, the ship berthed, their luggage, with that 6T other passengers was piled on the deck. When they went to get it, it had disappeared, and he and liis wife had to go ashore with nothing more than they stood up in. He identified a shirt found in the greaser’s locker as one belonging to him.

A police-sergeant stated that this was only one of the many cases recently reported from the Hororata and other oversea steamers. In several cases the passengers had had all their luggage stolen and had to come ashore with no clothes other than those they were wearing. No less than £4OO worth of luggage disappeared from the deck of the Hororata just before she berthed. It was believed to hace gone to the engineroom, and—as was the practice in these case—that :which was not wanted was Jumped into the furnaces so that no traces should remain..

The greaser was sent to gaol for three months. A fireman was then (charged with stealing the luggage of a Mrs Pine, a soldier’s wife, and a passenger by the Hororata. Carrying a small baby, she had had to go to the police station to get some things for her infant.

This man was committed for trial. The Magistrate indicated, in the plainest fashion, that he would use the utmost powers of the law to discourage this kind of contemptible thieving.