DECOY'S OF LONDON'S DOCKLAND

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17970, 6 October 1926, Page 8

DECOY'S OF LONDON'S DOCKLAND

Living round Dockland are a number of men and women—especially women—who live by preying on sailors. “Hullo, Jack! Glad to see you home again. Come and have a drink,” is the invitation with which these human sharks lure the sailor with full pockets into some house of ill-repute. The end of it is a drugged sailor in the gutter with empty pockets and his kit vanished. ■The Rev. G. T. Hill, of the Seamen's Chapel in Dockland, can tell stories of happenings of this sort by the dozen. Stark murders, terrible street fights, pnrl scenes in which sailors have fallen, stubbed to death, at his feet, have been hi* lot. Among the fights he has seen he numl**t* the great battle of Ratcliffe High* vav, when sailors, crimps, bullies, soldiew, and police all joined in. Broken bert.ties, bars of iron, and wicked-looking knjves were used in the fray, and more than one man fell never to rise again. Robbed of His Money. Even in these days of steam and swift vervages. men are still drugged and shanghaied aboard whalers, waking up when two days out at sea to realise that they are on a two years’ voyage with no chance of return. Often men come ashore from a sailing vessel with three or four months’ ti-ffces in their pockets, and then the crimps and decoys have a royal time. Once thev- can get a man to have a drink they have as good as got his money from him. And not only money, but kit, clothes, and of the least value are ;it-g|Niip r which the man is dumped inarTnrner somewhere to sleep off the effects of the drug that has ruined his shore time, and sent him to sign on somewhere at once as an alternative to starvation. Though not so much in evidence as in earlier times, the crimp still exists to prev on sailors, and the harpy who helps him to ply his nefarious trade thrives as much as ever. The Rev. G. T Hill states that even his chapel is nof free from the presence of these thieve#.

HUMAN SHARKS AND DRUGGED SAILORS.

The Harpies. On one occasion a sailor moved from his seat, and immediately his overcoat disappeared. Later it was learned that directly the sailor had moved two men had gone out from the chapel, one with the overcoat over his arm. It is comparatively easy to protect the sailor from his male enemies, if he can be kept from drinking with them, but with the women it is a different matter. Chivalrous by nature, the average sailor suffers in silence when it is a woman who has drugged and robbed him, and thus, while the crimp grows less in numbers, the evil women who live by preying on sailors are as plentiful as ever they were.