WILD DOINGS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 October 1919, Page 2

WILD DOINGS.

AMAZING STORY. SHIP'S CREW BREAK INTO CARGO AND ATTACK OFFICERS, An amazing story recalling a Joseph Conrad sea yarn was told to the Tortland (U.S.A.) magistrates early in September. It was a story of a ship with a cargo of alcohol and of some of the crew into the hold, getting drunk, attacking the captain, chasing the captain's Wife about the ship, threatening to hoist the red flag, and eventually being arrested by an armed boarding party from another ship- in response to a wireless S.O.S. signal. John Cody, Gerald Lynch, and 'Mike O'ConneH, seameii, were charged with feloniously inflicting grievous bodily harm on, Captain Charles Allen on board the steamship Mariska on the high seas, and counsel for the Public Prosecutor stated that the ship, which" had a cargo of pure alcohol, was bound' from Halifax to Baltimore, and then to Brest. On August. Bth, when the Bhip had been at sea a month, some of the: crew went into the hold with the alcohol, and got drunk. The captain armed himself with a loaded revpl•ver. The ' men threatened to throw him overboard, and the captain tried •to fire at them; but the revolver did not go off.. ' ' '* „' The chief officer and engineer caught O'Conncll. but he escaped after the irons had been placed qn one of his arms. With the iron that was free the man belabored the captain, and blinded Jiim. The men then chased the captain's wife about the ship, and when the chief officer went to her help she was in a state of desperation, and about to throw herself overboard. '•'"■ An S.O.S. signal was sent out by wireless, and another vessel, the War Khan, sent a party of nine armed men aboard the Mariska. The crew were 'put in chains, taken to Prance, sent to goal there, and later hroueht to Portland. The captain told the court that .one of the men wanted to hoist the Red Flag, but "he refused to let this be done. Three of his teetli were knocked out. ' The reason his revolver did not go off. was because it had been "doctored." The chief engineer said he interrupted Cody as ho was chasing the captain's wife round the ship. The three men were committed for trial. Two other members of the crew charged with mutiny were discharged. The Mariska is a Canadian-owned vessel of 2500 tons.