ROGUERY ON THE HIGH SEAS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19867, 15 June 1927, Page 12

ROGUERY ON THE HIGH SEAS

Tales of the Old “Coffin Ships” DOOMED FOR CASH (By 11 CABOT ” in Glasgow Weekly Herald ).

The ordinary life of a sailor is as far . removed from crime as the life of a I plumber. That I had best emphasise , at the outset. Nevertheless, the picture which most of us retain from our young years of the sea as the stage of lonely and curious happenings is not a false one, even to-day, so long as wc remember that such things do' not come the way of one ship in a thousand. The sea has been—and no doubt always will be—the stage for the most thrilling episodes in the annals of crime. I propose to recount something of the modern history of swindling, smuggling, and wrong-doing in affairs of the sea. The Spirit of the Buccaneers. I shall not go back, except for very brief mention, to the old buccaneering days of two and three hundred years ago. The exploits of those days, with such famous characters as Captain Teach (old “Bluebeard”), Captain Kidd, and the Barbary Pirates, have been well told in many living pages, both in what is called true history and in fiction —pages that paint very faithfully the unpleasant side of the loneliness and hazards of the sea. The spirit of the buccaneers has never forsaken the sea. It is fair to remember that it has always displayed, although warped and disgraced, the underlying spirit of adventure, the hardiness, and the self-reliance that arc to be found in all who are drawn to seafaring. Roguery at sea has descended from those old days to our own times by devious paths. The picturesque scoundrels of old have been replaced by more humdrum, but not less scoundrelly, successors. Many of our villains will bo vicious landfolk making dupes of seamen. We shall, perhaps, have time to examine some forms of mischief which hardly deserve the name of crime. But there will also be much to write of modern and present-day atrocities, I comparable with any of old times. ' Such are, in particular, the dreadful stories of “Rum Row” —that shocking

highway of crime in the road that forbidden liquor takes in its way to America—and the tales of the pirates in China, who arc just now at the zenith of their wicked career. The Crime of Scuttling. I want to begin with the sea-crime that has been responsible for more loss of life than any other. That is the crime of scuttling. Scuttling is distinctly modern in form. It is, at bottom, a shocking, mean, and sordid piece of swindling, engineered to secure illfound insurance money. Loss of life is only incidental to the business. The essential part is to get a ship sunk without any evidence of how she sank, in order to claim the insurance money. That has meant, more often than not, letting the crew sink with the doomed vessel. From the criminal point of view it is unfortunate but (as a matter of business) unavoidable. There have been two very serious outbreaks of scuttling. One was in the “sixties” and “seventies” of last century, and the other only within the last seven years. The first had to do with sailing ships, and the recent one, of course, with steamships. The first has left its blot on the record of the British merchant marine, but this country has only been concerned with the last as the centre of ship insurance. Leaking Timbers. Scuttling a steamship to-day is a much simpler matter than was scuttling a sailing ship sixty years ago. It is only necessary to open a sea-cock, and let water into the vessel. But with a sailing ship, short of actually boring holes in her (and that has not been unknown), the only way to sink her was to leave her in bad repair, send her to sea time and again overloaded, and take a chance of encountering bad weather Nowadays, it is not feasible either so to neglect or so to overload a ship that she will sink. But sixty years ago a man’s ship was his own—he was not troubled with too many regulations. If he liked to leave his ship with leaking

timbers, that was nobody’s business. If he liked to send such a ship to sea loaded so that her deck was all but flush with the water, that, again, was nobody’s business. The many tragedies were heightened because sailing ships used to carry such large crews. The wrongdoers were principally among the owners of small coal and “tramp” ships, both in this country and abroad, who were intent on making money for themselves at any cost in moral turpitude and loss of life. Their ships became known as “coffin ships,” which is a description requiring no explanation. £2500 for 20 Lives. There were no regular inquiries hold in those days after the loss of a ship. But, when a particular inquiry was made into one case by order of the House of Commons, it was found that a ship had been bought for £7500, insured immediately for £lO,OOO, and lost shortly afterwards with 20 men on board. The owners had tried to insure her for £13,000, but, failing to do that, had to be satisfied with a profit of £2500, merely for the loss of 20 lives!

In “Our Seamen,” his historic book which awakened the public conscience at the time, Mr Samuel Plimsoll, M.P., told a story of a ship, insured for at least £2OOO more than she was worth, putting to sea from a north-east coast port, only with threats and bargains with the luckless men on board of her, and with spectators looking on and remarking on the vessel’s rotten and over-loaded condition.

A workman near by remarked that he’d “rather go to jail than with that ship.” Sure enough, on the following Tuesday one of the ship’s boats was picked up, and that was the last that was ever heard of her.

Another eloquent story is of a ship leaving dock and a voice being heard on board telling the captain (and speaking presumably of a seaman who had run away)—“Larry’s not on board, sir.” Somebody else’s voice was heard to add—“ Then Larry’s the only man of us ’ll be alive in a week.” And that forecast proved accurate. Luring Ships to Destruction. Akin to the crime of scuttling sixty and seventy years ago was the abominable crime of “wrecking.” Wrecking was a land crime perpetrated on ships and seamen, not a sea crime. Many people alive to-day can remember when inhabitants of the coast thought the wreck of a ship a heaven-sent blessing, as the plunder belonged to them by age-old right. That was the custom that led to the wicked practice of deliberately luring ships on to rocks and sandbanks by false lights at night, and even cf murdering the crews of ships, because, if there were survivors of the wreck, there were no carrion rights to plunder it. Sir Walter Runciman, the veteran shipmaster and owner, and father of the Liberal statesman, has written that one of the first things he heard after joining a coasting vessel as a youngster was the prayer that children of the wrecking gangs were taught to say before going to bed. It was: “Goodnight, father; good-night, mother; God send a ship ashore before morning.” Wrecking gangs used to work by sending out decoys on boats with lights and flares to' mislead ships and trap them into dangerous situations. Dark or foggy nights helped the miserable' work, and it can easily be gathered that sometimes even the most wary captains were caught. While some of the gang were exhibiting false lights, others would \o out and offer their “assistance” to shipmasters who would be getting a bit uncertain about their bearings. But woe betide a ship which accepted such “assistance” ! The Attack. When a boat stranded, she was attacked with force. Many a vessel has been in a stale of siege throughout a night, the crew usually finding themselves in the position of resisting a much stronger attacking party. But. with the advantage of situation, and lustily using every weapon that came to hand, a ship’s crew sometimes warded off the attack of a wrecking gang after a night’s hard—and not bloodless —fighting. Wrecking has been done away with; wrecks are no longer the prey of human vultures. Scuttling, as I have mentioned, has been revived only within the last few years. But, at any rate, an end has long been made of “coffin ships.” For that, Air Samuel Plimsoll and the changes of time are responsible. When my readers next see a sea-going ship, they will, if they care to notice it, perceive a circular ring painted on the side of the ship with a horizontal line through it. That ring is known as the “Plimsoll mark,” and Mr Plimsoll would not have a more fitting memorial. The Plimsoll mark shows to what extent a ship may safely bo loaded. A ship mfty not go to sea with its mark below the wawfHco* Tho institution of the Plimsoll mark put an end to “coffin ships,” and many lives it has saved.