A MYSTERY OF THE SEA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 17 July 1925, Page 9

A MYSTERY OF THE SEA.

]lO BALES OF COTTON DISAPPEAR One of the strangest stories of the seas ever told in or out of fiction was related to a special correspondent of the Morning Post at Liverpool. At the end of February, he relates, 150 bales of Egyptian cotton, weighing 7201 b each, are alleged to have been loaded into an Ellerman Line’s steamer, stated to be the City of Lancaster, at Alexandria. The City of Lancaster reached Liverpool on St. Patrick’s Day. When the vessel unloaded on March 18 only 40 bales were discovered. One hundred and ten bales, valued at £12,000, had disappeared. At Alexandria, so it is stated, the ship’s bill of lading was in order and properly, endorsed, showing that 1/50 bales were loaded. Yet as soon as the hatches were removed when the vessel docked it was found that 110 bales were missing. It appears impossible for the missing cargo to have been stolen here at Liverpool, and its disappearance is at present a mystery. The- cotton was dispatched to Kearsley and Cunningham, cotton brokers of Liverpool. “I called on them this afternoon, but they were unable to throw any light on the mystery. I also consulted the Ellerman Company’s representatives here with a similar result. I learn, however, that Messrs Kearsley and Cunningham are taking action for the recovery of the value of their loss. “From the moment the loss of the bales was discovered exhaustive inquiries have been proceeding, but I understand that the assistance of the Liverpool police has not- been sought, which suggests that it is not thought that the bales disappeared at this port. It is pointed out that a theft of such magnitude—it is stated to be the biggest cargo loss ever recorded at Liverpool —j n such a short time and in such extraordinarily difficult circumstances, could have been accomplished only as a result of such a vast conspiracy as to make this theorv untenable. The most entertaining theory is that the 110 bales were dumped into the wrong hold, and subsequently covered with coal, but such a possibility is not re garded as feasible. “The head of a leading firm of cotton brokers told this evening some facts known to a few brokers, whoso general opinion is that the cotton never left Alexandria. They recall a somewhat similar case, when some bales were loaded on to the wrong ship, and the missing cargo was ultimately located at Odessa. They are also aware—and T can hear first-hand witness to the truth of this—that Alexandria has a particularly unsavoury reputation as the homo of lost cargoes.