SEAMEN IN COURT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 164, 11 July 1907, Page 5

SEAMEN IN COURT.

Two foreign seamen of the British barque Onyx, Olaf Olsen and William Gegenward, were charged at the Policecourt this morning before Messrs. Rosser and A. H. Russell, J.P.s, with having deserted from their ship. Mr. M. G. McGregor represented Captain Woebrig, of the vessel.

\.Tien asked what they had to say for themselves, Gegenward complained, in

voluble but broken English, that their treatment had not been what it should have been, that the ship was leaking, and was short of provisions before she reached port. Botit defendants complained of the quality of the food.

The captain, in evidence, stated that the men joined the ship in Melbourne in May, signing on for six months. A cargo of produce was brought across to Auckland and discharged in excellent condition, and now the ship was waiting to clear for New Caledonia, being detained by these two men.

On Saturday night they were paid some money, and during the Sunday they cleared out. There had been no complaint whatever about the food; as to the leaking, he had been on the vessel for fifteen years without once having had recourse to the pumps.

Charles J. Harris, the chief officer, corroborated his captain as to the wellfound state of the vessel and the absence of any complaints.

The Bench ordered the men to he returned to the ship, the expenses incurred to be borne by them.

Gegenward, upon this, exclaimed that he would not go back to the ship, and began to harangue the Court on the injustice of the whole business, ""when he was hurried out to finish his protest in the waiting-room.