EARLY DAYS OF MELBOURNE’S WATERFRONT RECALLED

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6806, 9 January 1929, Page 9

EARLY DAYS OF MELBOURNE’S WATERFRONT RECALLED

Wharf Idlers Doped and Shanghaied for Crew

WHEN WHITE MEN WERE MADE BLACK

Many interesting stones or waterfront 'adventures m the early da* Melbourne are told by Mr Alfred Sid ncy Monk, who is now living in retire ment at Middle Fark after halt a con tury’s experience as a waterman. _ Mr Monk recalls that the Great Britain once entered the bay at nndmg after a fast voyage from London, and repeatedly fired her signal gun to alarm the people on shore. lor thus disturbing the -peace of the port during prohibited hours hc-r master was fined £25 (says the Melbourne Herald). Deserters from ships were numerous. On being arrested they were usually confined on prison hulks until their vessels were ready for sea. One morning, long before daybreak, Mr Monk, accompanied by Captain Sinythe, of the Star of Bengal, sailed his boat towards the hulk Deborah for the purpose of securing the release of three deserters. An armed sentry shouted: “If you come any closer, I’ll fire on you! ” .. ~ “Wc want three of my. crew, replied Captain Smlthc. “Well come for them at sunrise, rejoined the sentry. “Do you imagine I’m going to rouse 200' sleeping men at this hour, to sort out your scallywags?” Shippers of horses to India, says Mr Monk, preferred coloured grooms becauso they were compelled by law* to pay the passages of white men back to the port of departure. Requested by the skipper of the Theophane to procure several coloured men to attend to a shipment of horses for Bombay, a notorious waterside “trader,” finding dark-skinned men unobtainable, “doped” the required number of white watorfront idlers. Blackening their hands and faces with burnt cork, he bundled them, still insensible, into the ship at night. It wn*; not until after the “trader”,had departed with his reward that the trick was discovered.

Drugged by the same man and shanghaied by him on a Yankee barque bound for Valparaiso, a sailor returned to Hobson Bay a year later in another ship. Vowing vengeance against him, ho ultimately fell into a drunken sleep in an hotel. On recovering his sen-' ses, he found that he had been shanghaied again on a ship that was already beyond the Heads. Stevedores of that period, Mr Monk adds, were remarkable men. Picturesquely dressed in white moleskin trousers and blue shirts ,they wore red sashes round their waists. Most' of them were members of the Naval Brigade. When, in ISGS, the Thermopylae mado her wonderful voyage of sixty days frdm London, .the stevedores marked the event by discharging her cargo in record time. Mr Monk thinks that the winds blew stronger in years gone by than they do now, for ships were frequently blown up on the beach from their moorings. Id often happened that the whaleboat used by the Customs officials could not return to Williamstown owing to gales and was compelled to shelter under the lee side of ships at Port Melbourne. When the ship Kate Hooper was being driven ashore. at Pf!rt Melbourne she burst into flames, her Chinese cook having wilfully set. her on fire in revenge for ill-treatment allegedly received by him from one of the officers. Immediately after starting the fire he committed suicide.