A MODERN PIRATE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3767, 10 June 1936, Page 6

A MODERN PIRATE

TRAWLER GIRL PAT. The days of pirates have long been considered past. Nevertheless the North Sea trawler Girl Pat has been declared by Lloyd’s and by the British Admiralty to be a pirate. The last case of piracy in which a British ship was concerned was the well-known case of the Ferret, which was finally arrested in Melbourne, thanks to the keen observation of a Customs officer (says the “Daily Commercial News and Shipping List,” of Sydney). Quite recently, within the last few years, there has been a case in which a German ship was concerned, the vessel having been stolen, her name and appearance altered, and operated for quite a while before the ruse was discovered. The object of such piracy is generally pure theft. By stealing a small vessel and operating it themselves, no doubt the thieves anticipate that they will have an adventure and possibly some commercial profit. In the olden days pirates were hung at the yardarm when captured, and records are plentiful of British Royal ships and such ships of other nations entering the ports of the Caribbean and of South America with corpses dangling from the yardarm. In view of the recent discussion on the capital sentence, no doubt if an Australian warship, having recaptured the Girl Pat, were to arrive at Sydney Heads with the bodies of the abductors dangling in the rigging there would be a terrible outcry. The alternative punishment of beiijg pressed to death, which meant that the culprit was spreadeagled upon a stone floor and huge weights piled upon him until life was extinct, would also probably raise objection among the humanitarians and sentimentalists. In these days piracy is the breaking of a large number of laws of the country to which the vessel may belong, and of the country to which eventually it may arrive. The pirates would be arrested, probably bailed, and, after long delays, sentenced to gaol, or a fine, unless, in the spirit of the times, they were let off as first offenders. Piracy to-day is a much more difficult matter than in the old days of the sailing ships. Vessels driven by engines have to be supplied with fuel, their motive power does not come from the air, and in order to obtain the fuel they have to visit ports, and directly they visit a port vown go the bars and on go the handcuffs.