SHAMBLES ON SHIPBOARD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 15, 17 January 1914, Page 17

SHAMBLES ON SHIPBOARD.

FIGHT EETWEEN SEAMEN' AND riKEMEX. "What was described as a relsn of terror on board a Glasgow ship formed the subject of a case which came before the Marine Police. Glasgow, aud in which Francis, Somerville, a fireman on the steamer Clan Macdonald, was charged with assaulting a seaman named Murray. The affair seems to have been started by the complaint of a seamau to the police that his bag had been stolen. Constables, visiting the ship, l'Cr covered the bag, now minus ~a suit of clothes, in the firemen's quarter, and after the officers left the trouble began. Uesentins the calling of the police, the firemen attacked the seamen's quarters, which were separated from their own by a wooden partition. In anticipation of an assault, the sailors had barricaded their door, but, in no way dannted, the firemen and trimmers, who numbered seventeen against twelve sailors, broke open the carpenter's store and armed themselves with serviceable tools, and with these implements they tore down nine feet of the partition dividing the two quarters, and rushed on the sailors. A terrible melee ensued, the attacking force raining blows on the defenders with the weapons. The first the police learned of the fierce fight was when Inspector McMurdy met a man on Queen's Dock Quay with blood pouring from his head. He first sent him to the Western Infirmary, and then hastened with a detachment of constables to the Clan Macdonald. The inspector went below, and such' was the scene of bloodshed that one would have thought a lot of sheep had been killed. Only fiye seamen were found on the vessel, seven having fled from it in fear. The Inspector roused the chief officer and had the- firemen mustered, when Somerville was Identified ■by one of the sailors as the man who had assaulted him lbs; knocking him down and kicking him, '