THEFTS FROM LINERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1921, Page 7

THEFTS FROM LINERS.

THE “SOUVENIR” HABIT. ' LOSSES OF PLATE AND LINEN. The liner in which you cross the Atlantic may be, as Kipling would say, quite a lady, and may not seem unnecessarily to throw herself about. Nevertheless, she, or rather the sea through which she has to_ force her way, is responsible each trip for the breakage of a terrible amount of crockery and glass, writes the shipping correspondent of a London paper. Hearing something during a recent trip of the extent of such losses, I have since made inquiries, and have seen actual return of losses for individual ships extending over many past weeks, and signed and countersigned by ships’ officials. These show that the losses of crockery and glass are, indeed, considerable, but they are overshadow’ed. by the disappearance of other articles. Of all the losses, missing linen represents the most costly item. Here are some of the losses expressed in sterling in individual passenger ships of very moderate size—by no means monsters —during round voyages across the North Atlantic in the last few weeks, which I extracted from a number of oAicial returns : £366, £453, £357, £9OO, £290, £461, £950, £4ll, £266, £284, £3Bl, £2OB, £l9l, £266, £*29B, £215. Now, an unexpectedly heavy roll may, when the tables are laid and are unprotected by “fiddles,” cause a good deal of glass to scatter, and it may be imagined that bad weather takes its toll of the crockery in the stewards’ pantries, for all of which the ships’ owners pay. But whence occur the losses of linen? The missing pieces cannot be washed into the sea. There is only,too much reason to think that some, at any rate, find, their way ashore in passengers’ trunks. The subject is a delicate one. Conceivably absent-mindedness might be held responsible fpr the occasional misplacing of table napkins or hand-towels; but some other reason must be found for the disappearance of linen articles on a wholesale scale. Again, there is electro-plate. Here are some figures of losses of pieces of plate similarly extracted from official returns during recent voyages;—£34, £43, £lOO, £lO5, £lBl, £B3, £32, £4O, £37, £4<s, £2B, £4l. Cases have dbme into court in which passengers ?have been discovered appropriating pieces of plate as “souvenirs.” Such cases of exposure are few and far between, yet it would seem that souvenir collecting is now being carried out on a very large scale. No doubt, as long as exposxire does not follow the hoaby is quite a profitable one. \ A third list shows some of the total losses for the same ships, ‘including crockery, tableware, glass, electro-plate, and linen, during recent round trips: £6lB, £727, - £Bl6, £843, £1462, £857, £894, £1212, £616, £799, £612, £682. These figures say a good deal for themselves. The losses have to be added on to the working expenses of the ships. The working expenses have to be taken into account in the passage rates, and these, compared with the rates obtaining before the war, which, as a rule, tvere generally admitted to be very reasonable, are now very high. Evident* ly there is a good deal of dishetaesty about, and the hon'edt passengers are having to pay for the dishonesty of their fellow-passengers. Presumably the owners are able to control, to a large extent, at any rate, any acquisitive tendencies of employees, but they are not so able to control their passengers. The evil shows no sign of abatement, and clearly special, efforts are now needed to eradicate it. It is one of the many factors tending to keep up passage rates, and so helping to make ocean travel a very serious matter indeed for people of moderate means. That is not a situation which ought to confront an island nation with many interests across the seas to which personal attention must be paid.