MODERN DAY PIRATES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20990, 29 September 1931, Page 11

MODERN DAY PIRATES.

STORY FROM SPANISH MAIN.

• CAPTURE OF A LUGGER.

FILIBUSTERS* EXECUTION. That piracy is by no mea.ns extinct today in remote parts of the Spanish Main is proved by an incident related by Sur-geon-Captain H. J. Brennard, of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald regarding Belize, in British Honduras, which was recently swept by a devastating hurricane. This ill-fated town was visited several times in 1915 and 1916 by the Australian cruisers Melbourne and Sydney. Surgeon-Captain Brennard says:— " A lugger, manned by three coloured men of sorts, from the coast of Nicaragua, was sailing northward toward Belize when a sailboat issued from one of the many creeks on this coast, manned by several filibusters. This craft overhauled the lugger easily, captured it, and threw the three male members of the crew overboard to the sharks which abound in these seas. Out of chivalrous feelings, however, they spared two women, passengers, putting them ashore with some provisions to shift for themselves. This proved their undoing. " The women managed to reach a telegraph line in British Honduras, and following this, reached a remote telegraph station, where they told their tale of woe. The filibusters meanwhile had made their way to Belize, sold the lugger, and had taken passage on a coaster bound for New Orleans, where Nemesis overtook them. " The pirates were apprehended and tried for piracy, and condemned by the British Court at Belize, but then the question of their execution cropped up. The Governor considered that all pirates should be hung at the yardarm of a man-o'-war, following the old precedent, although Gallows Point at Port Royal in Jamaica saw the end of many an oldtime pirate. The captain of the Melbourne was not anxious to carry out the sentence, and after some cabling to and from the Colonial Office in London, the pirates were executed at Belize with all legal formalities. " Dealing with the strange mixture of races at Belize was indeed a problem for the officers of the British Administration. One coloured prisoner in the Calabooze, or gaol, at Belize while wo were there, resenting the action of the doctor in giving him a very potent pill, stabbed the unfortunate medico next day, while he was writing at his desk. This man also paid the penalty of his crime."