STOWAWAY’S LONG VOYAGE

Taranaki Daily News, 9 June 1931, Page 7

STOWAWAY’S LONG VOYAGE

NAPIER TO ENGLAND.

THREE WEEKS IN PRISON.

London, April 17.

A young man who stowed away in the steamer Taranaki from New Zealand stated when charged at East Ham Police Court that he wanted to come to this country to continue his studies in accountancy. Prosecuting on behalf of the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company, Mr. Francis Peregrine said that prisoner, Frank Alexander Hilliker, aged 35, had been employed in New Zealand as a salesman. He had stowed away at Napier when that port was upset by the earthquake. The ship left New Zealand on February 15, and Hilliker was later discovered on the bridge deck, when he was put to work. Hilliker said he had for 10 years been employed by the Union Steam Ship Company, and understood that there was a mutual agreement between all shipping companies whereby he would be permitted to take a fre- passage. He had gone out to New Zealand as a child. He had left a job in order to come to this country, blit there was an aunt at Tottenham who would be prepared to accommodate him. The Mayor, in sentencing Hilliker to 21 days’ imprisonment with ard labour, said the bench took a very serious view of the fact that he had left a country where he had employment to come to a country where unemployment was so grave.