MURDER THREATENED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18057, 6 April 1933, Page 7

MURDER THREATENED

VICTIM OF BANDITS HUGE RANSOM DEMANDED SHANGHAI, April 5. Definite threats to shoot; three British captives remaining in the hands of pirates, unless a huge ransom is paid, were received in a letter delivered by Air. F. Bears, the fourth captive, who was released for the purpose of delivering the pirates’ demands and who reached Newchwang yesterday. The authorities Iravo been given until April 10 to comply, after which the pirates propose to scatter in order to avoid a possible punitive expedition.

Mr Pears reported tho other captives were being well treated, but he refused to disclose their whereabouts, since the fate of his comrades depended on the promise given to the bandits to keep their lair secret.

Four British mercantile officers were captured at Ne.wchwang by daring piracy on March 2!). The steamer Nttiiohang was anchored at the Newcliwang bar at noon awaiting a pilot, when three large junks filled with Chinese, armed with rifles and other weapons, sailed alongside. The pirates commenced boarding tho steamer before tho officers realised their intentions, and opened a heavy lire, driving tho Chinese crow of flic steamer below decks. They had little trouble in capturing the vessel. The attack was reminiscent of the old pirate days on the China coast, the raiders behaving like traditional buccaneers, shouting and waving their swords, and discharging their rifles, and indiscriminately running loose aboard the vessel. The foreign officers wore powerless to resist the attack, and were herded in quarters which had been thoroughly looted, and the whole ship was ransacked. The four British officers, Messrs. A. D. Blue (chief engineer, of Glasgow), F. L. Pears (third engineer, of Newcastle), Clifford Johnson (engineer, of North Wales), and IV. E. Hergrave (junior officer, of Ripon, Yorkshire), wero forced aboard the junks at tho point of the rifle.