SHIP-STEALING.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3180, 7 September 1881, Page 3

SHIP-STEALING.

The story of the Ferret steamer (says the Home News), stolen from tho Clyde by a clever stratagem and just captured at Melbourne, has caused something alrin to consternation in shipping circles. The crime is so new, the fraud so daring and unscrupulous, that all who are concerned in marine commerce are fairly astounded. It is a blow struck at the credit of those who go down to the sea in ships. Hitherto the captain or master of any vessel has been respected and trusted every where. His ship, with or without its cargo, was his security, and he paid all charges by bills on his employers at homo. The adroit rogues who got possession of the Ferret must have been fully informed of the status of the trading captain, and the facilities it afforded them of successful fraud. They first got possession of the ship by misstatementand by payment of a bill subsequently dishonoured ; they ran her from port to port, getting cargoes for credit, at one place and selling them for cash at another. They were prepared at any moment to sell the ship itself if danger of discovery pressed them hard. All this they might have carried on for an indefinite time but fox" the commendable vigilance of the Melbourne police. There is indeed no limit to operations of this kind if the scheme be as well conceived and as boldly carried out as in the case of the Ferret. It is conspiracy on a grand scale, backed up by capital and brains. One blot in the scheme was that the crew were not in the secret, and their evidence mainly contributed to discovery. But what if the seamen were confederates sharing in the venture ? This would be a piratical enterprise on a new and improved scale which it would not be easily to combat and repress. It is to be hoped, therefore, that I condign punishment will be meted out to these modern sea-highwaymen as a warning to others.

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