Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1921-03-06 | Page 25 | Ship Thievery Brings Outcry

SHIP THIEVERY BRINES DUTGRY Looting of Supplies Alarms Owners and Insurance Companies LONDON, March 6. A great outcry has arisen In the shipping world ovet the heavy losses that are incurred i through the depredations of thieves, many of whom I". Is suspected ar. In tho employ of tho companies that arc tho victims. Lord Aakwlth states it ha been estimated es-timated that In transport through the j port of London alone. through pilfering I in various forms, thero Ib a loss of j 3,600.000 a year. One shipping company nays that whcieas beToi,. M e war its losses on cargo attributable) to thefts amounted to ono shilling and four penc per ton, It now amounts to 20 shillings and nlnepence per ton. Increase Of wage ,lt Is asserted rf-I rf-I ford no guarantee of greater trust- worthiness. Rather tho Contrary. The j average wages of stewards are said to bo four times their pay before the war but it is In thoso departments on (Passenger liners with which stewards I are most concerned that depredations, It Is declared, are most noticeable. j ii.i iilui.ik"! oi one une i uiiiioi& iv 'Australia said that recently he had ! to expend well over 2.000 In replacing replac-ing the linen stolen on one round voyage voy-age alone. On this same round trip 'tho stewards' charges for "overtime" I amounted to 2,532. "Even the captain's ooy charged l'S for overtime on the voyage." said the manager. "If the captain rang for .the boy to bring him a drink, the boy charged ono hour's overtime for fetching fetch-ing it, provided he had already dono I his eight hours." Much plundering undoubtedly takes place before tho goods are stowed on shipboard, steamship men declare. Cases of machinery have been found 'to be full of stable manure and those 'supposed to contain gold and silver goods to bo filled with shavings. "The thieving that Is going on at sea und In docks Is beyond anything in history," writes Lord InchcapeJ chairman of tho Peninsular and Qti-I entol company. "A man recently removed re-moved the clocka from tho smoking and music rooms of one of our steam.-cra, steam.-cra, while tho passengers were embarking em-barking at Tilbury dock and they have never been traced. Within the lost few day a piano was removed from ono of the steamers In dock and carried car-ried off to a cottage where, however. It was recovered." Stewards, through their union officials, of-ficials, strongly resent Lord Inchcape'a charge that much of the stealing that goes on in steamers Is done by them. One of the official declares that the fondness of tho pnjwengers for collecting collect-ing what they call "souvenirs" Is responsible re-sponsible for far more "missing" articles ar-ticles than are the stewards.