PREPARED FOR PIRATES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 174, 24 June 1926, Page 11

PREPARED FOR PIRATES.

A bullet-scarred steamer, the Kanchow, took- Miss from Shanghai to Hong Kong to board the Taiping. There was a bullet hole through tho funnel, and the hatches showed signs of bandits’ bullets. Barbed wire and steel bars were in position to protect saloon passengers from pirates. Four Indian watchmen kept constant watch at tho secondclass quarters. Miss Armstrong explained that pirates usually came on board ns passengers, and at a given signal seized the ship. She wondered at all the precautions, but the master explained that it was a risky trip, as the steamer was carrying bullion. Miss Armstrong was* puzzled, however, that the money, £200,000, had been left in a shed from Saturday until Monday, and tlia.t it -seemed to bo loaded on to the steamer the same as the general cargo. “The feeling in China against the British is as bitter as ever,” said Miss Armstrong to-day. “It is a temptation to get one’s hair bobbed and to pose as an American.”