MODERN CRIMPING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 283, 26 November 1908, Page 3

MODERN CRIMPING.

A SIDELIGHT OX THE LABOUR TROUBLES. Five landsmen, members of the crew of the four-masted schooner Wliislow, jumped overboard from that vessel in San Francisco harbour early on September 19. risking their lives to escape from a plot to Shanghai them for a long voyage to South America. Two of the men were picked up immediately li.v a launch from the Sailors" Union and the other three almost perished before assistance reached them. The schooner Wlnslow is a sister ship to the Annie N. Campbell, upon which Charles Heimau, another shanghai victim, blew out his brains on the previous morning. Both vessels had attempted to ship non-union crews, and agents along the water-front had rounded up landsmen to man the vessels. LURED ON BOARD. retersou, Tallaway and Edwards met an. agent on the water-front, who held out great inducements for the three on an enterprise which be said he had in hand, lie represented to them that he could set them good wages, line food and short hours on a job of unloading some freight on a scow in the bay. Later the men were taken into a. saloon along the front and filled with liquor. While in a semi-conscious slate those three, with the other two sailors, whose names are unknown, were taken out In a launch, and placed abroad the Wlnslow under an armed guard. The Sailors' Union patrolmen learned of this act, and all night hung about the Winslow in a launch attempting to take the men off. They were forced to keep at a distance, however, by the guards, who threatened them with revolvers if they i came alongside the schooner. The vessel was shorthanded, and even witb. the crew of five, it was found necessary to tow her to Eureka. The five landsmen were surprised iv tlie morning when they saw a tug puffing alougside ready to take them to sea. Then they rebelled, but were told they had no alternative, whereupon all five jumped overboard, counting npou the Sailore , Union launch to rescue them. After the men had been picked up in the gasoline boat, the union patrol visited the schooner Annie N. Campbell, and took oft three more members of the crew, who com. plained against the treatment. 1 J,,, - CLERK'S A.DVEXTUEES. A remaxkable case is that of William Doyle, a clerk iv the Ferry postoffice, who bad disappeared and had been given up for lost by his wife, who believed he had deserted her. He returned to his home on September 20, and explained hi» ten weeks' involnntnry absence. According to his story, at about noon on July 2nd, he entered a saloon on the water front, and called for a glass of beer. The liquid must have been drugged, as the next tiling Doyle knew he was well down the coast on board the Crescent, a four-masted schooner bound for Singapore. His associates were a rough lot, and the captain extremely brutal in his treatment of the shanghaied man. He resolved to escape, and at La Maria, while the captain and crew were asleep, secured a dinghy and made the shore in safety. From this point be nAde his way to Tanala, where he took a horse out of a field and rode to Quechula. Here the horse gave out, and. after walking northward for many miles, borrowed another mount from a Mexican, and rode by easy stages to Cordova, a distance of 300 miles. The next stage to Vera Cruz was made by rail, on the trucks, under the passenire-r coaches. From this point Doyle worked his way on a tramp steamer to New York, tforc he wrote to the postmaster in ?--;iH Francisco, explaining his absence. He mingled with the professional tramps about the railroad yards and learned which route to take to return to San Francisco, and then started to "beat his way" home. Reaching Chicago, he called on the president of the Post-office Clerks' Union, and was offered money to pay his way to this city, bnt he refused this, and "rode the beams," arriving home as stated, to the I delight of his wife.