CRIMPING.

Evening Star, Issue 12768, 22 March 1906, Page 7

CRIMPING.

PRACTISED IX XEW ZEALAND. [Special to the Siap..] WELLINGTON, March 22 With regard to the “ crimping ” revelations made to the Commonwealth Parliament, Mr Young, of the Seamen’s Union, says, in the ' Post,’ that he, can endorse everything in the Commission’s report in regard to crimping at Newcastle. Mr Young says: “ I suppose that the practice is more prevalent there than at any other port in Australasia. lor the simple reason that it is a very large shipping port, with deep-water vessels.” Explaining the methods of the kidnappers, he indicated that the term “ crimper’ ” was applied to the master of a boarding-house who trafficked in| sailors. This individual would usually have the “ dirty work ” done by an assistant called a “runner.” This henchman would make it his business to go on board a ship, mingle with the crew, and perhaps have a chat with the skipper. He would ascertain whether the “ old man ” wanted a recruit or two, or would also discover whether any malcontents would be anxious to desert. Ha would make compacts, perhaps guaranteeing to supply the master with a sailor, and at the same time rob him of one. Under an arrangement with “ Jack ” a boat would creep under the ship’s bows in the stilly night. He and his belongings would be lowered into it, afid taken to the boarding-house. There the sailor would be secreted till his ship had departed, and once the vessel was out of right the board-ing-house master would take steps to unload his guest on to another ship. When he found a craft in need.of a man “Jack” would get an engagement, and the crimper would arrange for an advance instalment of the prospective wages covering a month, six, or eight weeks, and when this transaction had been completed “Jack” would be cheaply made drunk, and deposited on his now ship. He would wake up in the morning to find that he had been “shanghaied.” “A boarding-house master might give a sailor a few shillings,” Mr Young said, “ but I have known a crimper at Newcastle to get as much as £6 advance for a man. He made the sailor drimk, and sent him on board of his ship_ with a bottle of cold tea under his arm, which the poor fellow thought was ruin.” The crimper’s share of the advance cash was called “ blood money,” and he was not particular about the way that he earned it. His “ runners ” might come across a stray sailor, intoxicate him, and spirit him on to a ship in consideration of a satisfactory bonus from the master. But the customary process was the boarding-house trap. Sometimes one of the blood-suckers would play a trick by which

one of the biters would he bitten. Mentioning _ah instance which came under his notice in Newcastle, Mr Yotihg remarked that there was a slump in men in the port,, and a crimper “ shanghaied ” one of his own runners on to a boat that Vraa bound for San Francisco, thus giving America an undesirable immigrant. The tiling is rife, Mi- Young says, in Wellington. (One man is known who is a great offender; The law has clauses to lay hiqj by the heels, hut he escapes. Why is, this thus? Where is. the proverbial cherub? Is he too far up aloft to see anything?”