AROUND THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1928, Page 4

AROUND THE WORLD.

GOSSIP OF THE PORT. "SKAirGHAI-HTG." In the days of our forefathers we had that terrible instrument for the manning of the Royal Navy, the press gang; and a seaman on a merchant ship was never sure of seeing his home whilst this was in action.

It often happened that East Indiamen, just arrived home from a long voyage to India or China, were boarded by boats from men o' war, who carried off their best seamen to serve a long commission in a flash frigate or blockading line of battleship. History tells us that Captain Cook's ship, the Endeavour, had among her complement no less than ten forward hands who were victims of the press gang. In the latter days of the sailing ship the happy-go-lucky shellback often suffered a like fate through the machinations of the crimp and boardinghouse master.

In many of the big sailing ship ports, especially on the Pacific Coast, captains had to pay "blood money," so much a head, to the crimps in order to complete their complement and get their ships to sea. In order to supply the men a crimp and his runners employed every artifice, from drugged rum to sandbagging. The chief method employed was to persuade the crews of newly-arrived ships to desert. For instance, when a ship arrived inside the Golden Gates at San Francisco, her anchor had scarcely hit the bottom before the crimp's runners were alongside. In many cases the ship's captain and officers took little or no notice of them; it was to their advantage to see that the crew jumped the ship, for the pay that was due to the seamen would be entered up to the captain's credit in the "slop chest" account. The crimps were good at making promises. They had numerous jobs vacant in coasting vessels at wages which were six times more than those ruling on British sailing ships.

Throughout the 'nineties in the Pacific Coast ports crimping was at its height. British merchant seamen in those Uavs were paid from two pounds to two pounds fifteen shillings per month, and the wages ruling on that coast were from fifty to seventy-five dollars per month; therefore, the temptation to desert was a big one. It was almost impossible for British ships to get men to sign on voluntarily in any of the American ports; therefore the crimps were forced to shanghai anyone they could get hold of, "blood money" up to as much as seventy-five dollars per man being asked and paid by the masters of the crewless ships. Many sea stories have been based on this shanghai-ing business. Morley Roberts uses the true story of the kidnapping of a British naval officer in one of his volumes of sea yarns. All men were fish for the crimp's net. Be he farmer, policeman or parson, if a crimp I once got hold of him it was a sure case of an eastward voyage around the Horn. In 1890 a 'Frisco policeman named Leahy was sandbagged in Howard Street, and the following morning he woke up in the fo'csle of the ill-famed American ship T. F. Oakes, when she was towing out to sea! The following year a Baptist minister, who had made himself unduly prominent in the suppression of the 'Frisco crimps, was kidnapped, drugged and shanghaied aboard the Clyde ship Loch Broom. The official report of this case tells us that the parson, when he got over his astonishment and surprise at finding himself a fully-fledged able-seaman, was the most willing worker aboard the Loch Broom, and he succeeded in converting more than half of the crew from their evil ways.

To a great extent the boardinghouse master or crimp was a recognised institution all over the world. Even Auckland had a well-known crimp in the late 'eighties in the person of Paddy Smith, who kept a boardinghouse in Xelson Street. The better-known crimps, some of them with a world-wide reputation, had their headquarters on the Pacific Coast. What sailorman has not heard of the illfamed Paddy West, of Astoria? The names of "Shanghai Brown," of 'Frisco, and Sullivan, of Seattle, brought curses from the lips of many foc'sle hands whenever they were spoken about.

Perhaps the writer would be correct in stating that of all these notorious blackguards "Shanghai Brown" was the most evjl character that was ever mixed up in this horrid business. Brown kept three establishments in San Francisco, and he employed a small army of runners to carry out his orders. These runners were ail fighting men, and were paid at so much per head for everyone, sailor or landsman, whom they could bring to the boardinghouse. Brown it was who planned the shangbai-ing of the 'Frisco policeman. He boasted that it any other policeman interfered with him or his runners the same fate would be handed out. He w*as a big Irish-American, and had a paunch on him which would not disgrace the proprietor of a German beer-garden. He practically controlled the 'Frisco waterfront from 1880 until 1896, when he himself was shanghied by the apprentices of the Clyde ship Springburn. Dame Rumour gave Brown a great reputation as a fighting man. Every sailor who had heard of him fully believed that if he could not fight a man with his fists he thought nothing of finishing him off with a revolver bullet. It is a proved fact that when an opposition boardinghouse for seamen started in the same street as his chief establishment he called upon the proprietor and gave him a week to close down

or he would ship him off in a "hell-ship " No notice was taken of the threat, and twelve days later the opposition found himself aboard the ship Howard D. Troop, the hardest and hungriest vessel that elfer sailed under the Ameritan flag. It is also a fact that Brown collected fiftv dollars as "blood money" for his victim, and He was in league with many of the proprietors of the low-class drinking saloons which adorned the 'Frisco waterfront, and * henever any likely-looking victim happened along to these saloons they were handed a drink containing "knock-out" drops and Brown was urgently sent for. Many of his victims were secured in this manner, but if the supply did not come up to the demand then innocent law-abid-ing citizens going about the waterfront after dark were apt to get knocked on the head with a lead pipe or a sandbag, and before they recovered they formed members of the crew of an outward-bounder. It was proved that on one occasion the lead pipe was swung too heavily and the injuries sustained by the victim proved fatal. Nevertheless, the dead man was shipped aboard an English ship as "a prime seaman," Brown explaining to the j u ca P^ a ' n that the "prime seaman" had been on the mm for over a week and was dead drunk. He collected fiftv dollars for the dead one. Unfortunatelv history does not tell us what the captain said when he discovered the truth. Whenever Brown had occasion to supply a ship with seamen he alwavs made it a Practice to fill his victims with doped drink before taking them on board. Verv seldom did he ever ship anyone until an hour or two before the vessel was readv ° depart, and he always accompanied them to the ship, collected the "blood riir» e Jf n? v. Wa,t i? d - see the sarne departure of the shanghaied ones, usually taking his own departure from the ship as she down the bay outward-bound for the deep waters. This habit proved his downfall, and the story of the shanghai-ing g^ ea , t Shanghai Brown" caused a great guffah of laughter to travel around the world wherever sailing ships gathered It gave poignancy to the laugh when it W that , a , n e 'phteen-year-nld boj was the hero of the adventure The story will be told later.