ON THE HIGH SEAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 78, 2 April 1928, Page 5

ON THE HIGH SEAS.

FIREMAN HITS ENGINEER. FIXE OF £2 IMPOSED. An incident which took place in tlie stokehold of the steamer Kia Ora when! was one clay out from Panama on j her voyage to Auckland was ventilated j at tho Police Court this morning, when i Daniel Griffiths (28). a fireman on the steamer, was charged with having assaulted Archibald William English and Cordon Martin Birchennongh, two engineers. "I don't remember anything about it at all." said Griffiths to Mr. E. C. Oneten. S.M. "I've got nothing against any j of the engineers, but I've had a lot of | worries this last three months. My wife I died recently and my kiddie was in Lon-| don Hospital when I left England. I apologised the next day to the third engineer, but it was not accepted." Mr. Gray, who appeared for the master of the ship, said that on March S, when English, the third engineer, started his watch he saw accused sitting 011 a piece of coal in the stokehold. When accused saw English he commenced to rake the furnaces with a long iron rake. Griffiths asked the third engineer to get out of the way. However, as the third did not consider he was in the way, he did not move, and Griffiths then used some obscene language and struck English cn the face, knocking him to the floor. The master of the Kia Ora, in evidence. said thr.t Griffiths had been quite all right, with one exception, apart from the present charge, when he disobeyed a lawful command. Griffiths was lined £2 or seven days' j imprisonment. 1