RUM RUNNER CAPTURED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 26 August 1927, Page 8

RUM RUNNER CAPTURED.

SHIP TAKEN BY BLUFF. COASTGUARD OFFICER’S FEAT. NEW YORK, Aug. 10. A twenty-seven-year-old ensign in the coastguard service has performed a feat which is hailed as one of the most remarkable exploits perlormed by an individual in the course of the Government’s “anti-rum” war. Almost single-handed, he captured the alleged British rum-runner Economy, togetJier with a cargo worth 51X1000 dollars and a crew of 22.

Ensign Charles Duke was in charge of a thirty-foot Revenue cutter with a crew of three men when lie sighted the Economy near quarantine, and, despite a forty-mile gale, gave chase and quickly overhauled the larger vessel as she sped towards the New Jersey shore. As the cutter drew alongside, Ensign Duke, armed with a rifle, leapt on board, felling with the butt of his weapon a sailor who tried to bar his way The Economy’s helmsman, however, stoutly refused to heave to, so Duke veiled out to his men on the cutter : “Turn the machine-gun on this gang if they don’t bring this ship to at once!”

The cutter carried no machine-gun, but the ensign’s bluff succeeded and the Economy hove to. For the next three hours Duke sat with a rifle across his knees guarding the captive crew until a number of huge patrol boats arrived to conduct the prize into port. Coastguard officials stale that the Economy was originally registered in Belfast under another name.