LASCAR IN CHAINS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20388, 20 April 1928, Page 4

LASCAR IN CHAINS.

STOKEHOLD EPISODE AT SEA. ATTACK WITH KNIFE ALLEGED. PRISONER RETAINED ON BOARD. (Special to Dail* Times.) AUCKLAND, April 18. Held captive by means of a length of wire cable and a heavy iron ring about his ankle, a swarthy Lascar on the British steamer Newby-Hall, now berthed at the Princes Wharf, yesterday went sullenly about his work. To-day there was more than one pair of curious eyes, the possessors of which had heard strange rumours concerning, the shackled deck hand, and though they eagerly scanned the ship from stem to stern the captive was not to do seen. . One of the several curious visitors to the steamer this morning endeavoured to elicit a few facts about the case from one of the junior officers, but the latter had nothing to say. He could neither confirm nor deny anything but recommended the inquirer to the "old man.' The Lascars working about the ship, some dabbing paint and others preparing the midday meal, were oven more' reticent Tnev either could not or would not. talk, and their dark eyes conveyed nothing. Inquincj among the waterside workers employed on the vessel, however, were rather more successful, although few of these men had any very dofinito information. For the purpose of the story, which concerns several, of a number .of Lascars cm ployed on the steamer, it is best that the prisoner be given a name, and ' Ali will probably suit him as well as any. other. R Ali, 'it is alleged. «nan«led violently with one of his fellow stokehold hands during the steamer's voyage from New York to Auckland, and on one day (or night) when the vessel was making her knots or so down the Pacific, the aggriev*! native savagely attacked .his shipmate, presumably with a sharp knife. It >s understood that -'All's" attack resulted in h victim spending more thai, one day in h» bunk, with an ugly slash across hw, stomach. "Ali" thus proved hinisolf a very dangerous individual .was, it i 9 understood, promptly 8 el^\ r tl l !If 1 his knife; and so put away that there was no danger, of his attempting * n # h « £* n £ the kind. It is presumed that the prisoner was brought before the master R C Sand charged, but definite> information on 11m pomt i? lacking. ■» » also uncertain whether '•.Ah' continued to work about the ship for the remainder of the Nowby Hall's passage or jrw pom. polled to brood over fiis confines of, a locked cabin. The victim of the attack, it is said, made quick recovery, and is now going about his ro luch r is "the*" story, it is understood, that accounts for "Airs" appearance in ajeg iron yesterday. The waterside workers who saw him aboWthe iron of the ship sty that % wire attached to the man s anide-iron fas , fastened to a by means of a padlock. Thus, although it prevented, him from again running • w Ud, or, if ho so desired from toithe wharf and. escaping to the crty.J" La ]r car was able to make himself useful, but " Ali ■■'"' rather naturally objected, it is said, to beintr subjected to the curious gaze »t £o watersidcrs, and anyone who chanced to be passing along the.wharf, &nA decline] to work AI a result, it is further alleged, he was put in irons and taken below Captain Zeal, when approached this morning, declined to make any statement a have not made to the «v o authorities against the. ««fl« «J" A* " those parts. ■