CURIOUS AGE-OLD BELIEF.
A strong warning of the consequences that would follow in future to people who looted wrecks of ships on the rugged Cornish coast was given when three men were accused at Penzance lately of stealing articles from the steamer Ornais, which was driven ashore at Perramithnoe.
Sir Eric lhomas, defending counsel, said to the magistrates:—“ There has been for centuries past in the historv of Cornwell a belief that a wreck is God’s gift for the benefit of the covers, but the time has arrived when all that sort of belief should be got rid of.” The defence was that the articles were taken as souvenirs, snd that after the wreck, hundreds of people went on board and took things away with them. They did not think that they were doing wrong. The Bench fined two of them £5 each, and the other man £l. It was added that if the case had been brought under an Act regarding thefts from wrecks, the men would have been liable to two years’ imprisonment.
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Otago Daily Times, Issue 20958, 22 February 1930, Page 27
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175CURIOUS AGE-OLD BELIEF. Otago Daily Times, Issue 20958, 22 February 1930, Page 27
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