WOMEN STOWAWAYS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVII, Issue 4460, 21 October 1933, Page 2

WOMEN STOWAWAYS

ATE PORK PIES AND CAKE. After setting out to cross the Atlantic with 2s, a pork pie, and a bag of buns, a woman stowaway sobbed bitterly when she eventually had to return to Liverpool a few weeks ago. Miss Alice Smith, aged 29, a native of Sheffield, who had recently been living in Liverpool, stowed away on the outward-bou'nd Cunard liner, Laconia with a friend, Mrs. Sullivan. They were discovered a few hours after the vessel had put to sea, and at Queenstown, Miss Smith was transferred to the liner Georgic. On reaching Liverpool she was questioned by the Cunard officials and sent home. Miss Smith related in an interview that she met Mrs. Sullivan at the house where she was living. “Mrs. Sullivan painted such a glowing picture of America and her home in Chicago,” Miss Smith declared, “that in a mad moment I agreed to stow away with her. I had never been in a ship before. “We went to the Cunard offices to ask for passes to visit friends who were leaving in the Laconia, but the names Mr. Sullivan mentioned to the clerk were not on the passenger list, and he would not give her a pass. However, she managed to see two names on the list and sent me in, and when I mentioned these names I got passes for both of us.

“We sat on the top deck until we were well away from land, and then it became so cold that we went below to the reading-room. Up to that time we had managed to avoid ticket inspections, although my friend had to show her passport once or twice. We dared not go into the dining-room and sat behind coils of ropes to eat pork pies and cakes we had taken with us.

“When most of the passengers had retired for the night we started exploring and found some blankets and bedding in a locker. ‘We took some of the blankets into a cabin which was unlocked, made ourselves comfortable, and had been asleep for some time when two night watchmen threw open the cabin door expecting to find it empty. We admitted that we had stowed away.”