TRAPPING RIVER PIRATES

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 119, 23 May 1925, Page 24

TRAPPING RIVER PIRATES

Comparatively lew people know much of that, small army of London police winch keepsthe Thames freo from crime, and whicn has millions of pounds' worth of merchandise in its keeping. Bays aLondon weekly. Little more ifian a century ago il,o river was the plunder gioajjd.o thousands.of thieves, who took their toll from ships which discharged night they would cut adrift a IHiler into which a ship had been discharging her cargo m mid-channel, and as she drifted down the river would strip her o all she held They would board ships just arrived from foreign parts vuth rich cargoes aboard, and, while the ofiicera oonvenienUy slept, would remove hundreds of pounds' worth of cargo in a-single night. They would engage themselves in gangs as "bumpTj V,. Ul?, load shi Ps' aud 'in capacious and skilrully concealed pockets would carry away cargo every time they went ashore..- often enriching themselves by as much as £400 from a single ship. The officers of the ships were often in lea-u.e with these river highwaymen, and hundreds of tons of tobacco-and spirits were dropped overboard, attached to buoys to he removed by the pirates under cover o darkness. This „•*» the condition of things on tne river a conturv ago. Yet so excellently have the - B'iver Police done their work that now £100 would h£T,,T' yth f in?-thafc i 3 stolen °» duty for Six hours out-of every eighteen, and these spells of duty cover every hour of the twenty-four." Tim, on the blackest and wildest winter niVht there are men patrolling the Thames, with a keen eye for anything that may not be ■ wit nil the law. The day of wholesale plundering from ships is'lonover, and the work of the force is chiefly the suppression of smuggling. 'There is gruesome work to do, too; for it is part of their many duties to keep a watchful eye for suicides and to rescue and restore- the poor castaways who' ue.-try of hfc. ?eek to quciu-h it in the co.d waters-of the river.

A £115,003 w.hemo for hnJ.K- and «-ail-.