THEFTS ABOARD SHIP.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 July 1920, Page 9

THEFTS ABOARD SHIP.

LUGGAGE AND CARGO. ■Sydney, .lime '2ll. One of the most remarkable and annoying features of the post-war crime wave is the persistent mid 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 care, will have their ■ luggage and even their pockets rifled. Petty thieving is particularly prevalent on the inter-State ships, ami something of what oversea passengers hav c to put' up with was told at 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 Charles Dowdesell. Dowdesell, 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 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 grea'ser's locker as one belonging to him. A police sergeant stated that this was only one of many cases recently reported from the Hororata and other oversea steamprs. 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 bertheS. It was believed to haye gone to \~i\e engine-room, and, as was the practfo in these cases, that which was not wanted was dumped 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 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 and 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.