Page 4 Advertisements Column 2

Hokitika Guardian, 2 September 1922, Page 4

KISSED BY PIRATES. PARIS, July 7. Seven Georgians, short, dark-visaged 1 men with long hair and ragged clothes : are being tryed by an extraordinary Levant court sitting at Aix-en-Provenec | near Marseilles, for piracy. ! Tit is Levant court dates back to the time when the Sultan of Turkey allowed French courts to have jurisdiction over crimes committed in the Levant. Altogether thirty pirates, disguised as passengers, were on board the Freni.h liner Souirah, 2,839 tons, which left Datum, in the Black Sea, for Marseilles, on May f>, 1920 with 400 passengers. About two Honrs after the ship left the gang threatened the captain and wireless operators with revolvers, put the wireless apparatus out of action, and robbed the passengers who were compelled f o open their trunks. The leaders, who wore masks, kissed the hands of the women before taking their rings and left the passengers with small change, even giving some of them a few coins stolen from ethers. Among the passengers was Mrs Haskell, wife of the United States Commissioner to Armenia, who, with her tivn children, was robbed of everything. The Pir-itcs next compelled the captain to stop the ship and forced the crew to put them and their plunder ashore. The haul amounted to £BO,000. The men now on trinl are alleged to be members of tb© gang.