SENSATIONAL CHARGES OF SHIP-SCUTTLING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9307, 16 September 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

SENSATIONAL CHARGES OF SHIP-SCUTTLING.

In Dundee Sheriff Court D. M. Hobbs, shipbroker, Dundee, and Joseph Severn, who acted as ship's master in his employment, have appeared before Sheriff Camp-bell-Smith to answer certain charges of scuttling ships and fabricating documents. The indictment, which occupied thirty pages, closely printed, referred to the destruction of five vessels—the Da Capo, the Gaetjehna, tho William and Martha, the Tryst, and the Barrogill Castle. With regard to the Da Capo, Hobbs is charged with having given instructions to scuttle her, and Severn is charged with carrying oub these instructions by boring holes in the vessel below water-mark, whereby she was lost off Montrose in August, 1891, and Hobbs secured £1170 of insurance money. The Gaetjehna, the William and Martha, and the Tryst are said to have been destroyed in a somewhat similar way, Hobbs, it is also alleged, issued as genuine a forged bill of lading regarding sails and masts which were never shipped ab ail, a forged bill of lading for overweighb of cargo, and receipted accounts for equipments, etc., which were never purchased and repairs never executed. In connection with the Barrogill Castle there is a charge of wilful fire raising. Both the accused pleaded nob guilty. The trial will take place in the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh on the Bth of Augusb.