THEFTS ABOARD SHIPS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3517, 1 July 1920, Page 4

THEFTS ABOARD SHIPS.

o PASSENGERS' HEAVY LOSSES. SYDNEY, June 23. One of the moit remarkable and annoying features cf the post-war crime-wave is the persistent and apparently unchecked thieving which goes on aboard ships. Everyone knows that pillage oi' cargo is rampant, but it is not so well-known that passengers, unless they exercise the utmost cure. Avill have their luggage and even their, pockets, rifled. Petty thieving is particularly prevalent on the inter-State ships, and something of what oversea travelers have to put lip with was told in ths Police Court this week. A greaser off the Horoxata was charged with stealing clothing and other luggage, of the value of £IOO, the property of Charles TJowdsell. Dcwdsell, a returned soldier ,who had been wounded in the mouth, said ..that with his wife he arrived in Sydney last week by The Hororata. Just "before the ship berthed their luggage "with* that of otEer passengers, was piled On the deck. When they went to, get it it bad disappeared, and he and -his- wife had to go ashore with Slothing more than they stood up in. He indentified a shirt found in the greaser's locker as one belonging to jhrm. A police sergeant stated that this was only one of many cases recently Xeported from the Hororata and other oversea steamers. In several cases sfce passengers had had all their lug-

gage 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 have gone to the engineroom, ,arid, as was the practice in these cases, that which was not wanted was dumped into the furnaces, so that no traces should remain. j The greaser was sent to gaol for) three months. i A fireman was then charged with I stealing the luggage of a Mrs Pine, j a soldier's wife, and a passenger by the Hororata. Carrying a small baby, she had had to leave the ship without luggage, and her plight was so desperate that, when most of her luggage was fortunately recovered by the police, she had had to go to the police station to get some thing 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.