Mysteries Ashore and Afloat

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12423, 17 April 1926, Page 11

Mysteries Ashore and Afloat

The Strange Case of the Steamer Ferret

THOSE who belieoe with Kipling’s “Viscount Loon” that romance of the sea all disappeared with sail, and that except for an oo casional outbreak in China seas the pirate died with knee breeches * should refer to the case of the steamer Ferret which occurred within ths memories of many living men. The Ferret herself Was Wrecked on the ' Australian coast only a few months ago and scarcely anybody repalled th <s circumstances of her history.

NO. 11. The ship was still the Ferret-, apd Smith relied upon the fact that although ihe casualty would hav© been by telegraph to Lloyd’« ? news of/ it would noct yet have reached the island, and he had some weeks at his disposal before tlie local agents would get the import by way of tho London mail. Ho therefore took his time- over the business of taking on board a© much ,coafl as he could get into the ship’s bunkers and cargo holds and also sufficient moat and vegetables to last him a- long cruise. All these, purchases were made with bills, which were the more acceptable because tho wideawake agent at St. Vincent looked up the &hip in Ltovd’s Register, and found that she ‘bolonged to eminently respectable owners. Smith was reckoning that the various parties in the ports that he would visit m future would not be so wideawake, and in this he reckoned rightly. As soon as he left St. Vincent her name was changed to Benton, which did not af course appear in any register. Under this name she arrived at Sifntos, the big coffee port of Brazil, on tho day after Christmas. Smith represented her as being homeward bound in ballast from Capetown but lie was willing to take up any cargo for Europe that would pay bim, and accordingly he shipped a valuable coffee cargo to Marseilles. Ho sailed on January 11th, but instead of going home he went to Capetown. By this time the Highland Railway, the Glasgow ship chandlers, and various other 1 creditors were discovering that the bills they had accepted for their debts were and a very fine hue and cry arose. This *vas held up for some time owing to it appearing so certain that she had sunk off Gibraltar, but doubts began to arise even about this story, and Lloyd’s and tho Board of Trade were called in to assist. Every Lloyd’s agent and every consular official all over the world was naked to keep an eye open for tho Ferret, but again there was a certain , amount of delay owing to a suspicion that she had been to Malta, and that she was probably then somewhere round about among the Greek Islands. AU this was going on while tho Renton was ploughing her way across the South Atlantic, and during this passage her name was again changed to India. At that time the Island of Guam in the Pacific, which is now a I r .S. naval station of first importance, had no trade at all, and to clear a ship I for Guam was equivalent to declaring that she was engaged on some rather shady business in the Pacific, either smuggling into Japan or Chin. or gun running into the Philippines, or doing a score of things that were only

| regarded as absolutely illegal when tho transgressor was caught by the country that suffered. Instead of Guam, however, the India arrived at Port Albany, m Western Australia* and then went on to Melbourne. Here the conspirators again offesfed the ship, for sale but nobody would buy her, and by this time they were beginning to feel nervous that the authorities must lie on their track J tt\or -thia reason they kept steam up, banking their fires with the greatest care so that they could get away at a moment’s notice, and hy the ironv of fate it was this precaution that first drew the attention of the authorities to them. / No India was mentioned m Lloyds Register,, but curiously enough it does not seem to have occurred to anybody for several ‘days to see whether her dimensions corresponded with those of the missing Ferret for which the hue and cry had >een raised. Had it only occurred to them to do this before they might have I got the whole gang, hut as it was | they descended on the ship in force onlv to find that Mr and Mrs Smith i ar \y Captain Carlyon had slipped ; afihoro the day before, taking with them the £3OOO in gold that had been received for the coffee at Capetown. The purser and chief engineer, as well aa the .crow who had been duped, were left to their fate. There followed careful search through Melbourne and the neighbourhood to find the fugitives, but for some days it was without result. Smith had succeeded in getting away to a township pome considerable distance uo country, but the natural curiosity otf a new chum appearing in. euch a neighbourhood led to people connecting him with the missing pirate whose doings were filling the Melbourne papers. and he was arrested. Considerable sympathy was aroused because Mrs Smith loyally came out of biding and visited him in prison, until it was discovered that the reason of her loyalty was to convey to him a file with which he nejfrly succeeded in working through the bars of his cell wind hv. Captain Oarlvon appeared to have got clean away until a seaman was arrested for being drunk and diaorderlv in one of the worst quarters of Melbourne, and was promptly recognised.

No effort was made to arrest Mrs Smith, or "William Griffin, although it was obvious that he was one of the original conspirators, but the rest were held on. a charge of forging the ship’s payers until the necessary proceedings could ho taken in England. In due course Fhese were completed, and Pmith, Wright, and Wallace were charged with conspiracy to defraud various parties. Curiously enough they were acquitted of having defraud* ed the original owners of the Ferret, hut convicted on the other counts* Smith and Walker receiving seven* venrs* penal servitude each and Wright half that term. Nnbodv else was pro-r'-odod against. As it was ohviontf that the expense of getting the Ferret br.rb to i r -usla"d would bo nearly as much ns thq sMp was worth she was pydd in Australis p.nd -purchased by Van Adelaide compnnv, which ran her 'JbK man-*- years under her original n£fcne on the roasting service. It* was onlv a few months ago that she was on A ug tY aljiM? - coast. /