The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1901-12-10
ROB SE|PS
OF COAL
Systematic Thefts
From Cargoes
Discovered.

British coal cargo ships from New
castle, consigned by James and Alex
ander Brown, have been Systematically
robbed during the discharge of the coal
AZ Honolulu for the past year, and an
investigation has been under way for
some time TO ferret out the methods
| employed by those suspected of being
at the bottom of the steal. The figures
of the weighed-in coal as obtained from
| the Newcastle scales and those OBJ
tanned on the Honolulu scales have in
many cases shown such startling dis
crepancies that the matter was rut
into the hands of competent men and
every ship discharging coal has been
under the surveillance of detectives.
| The comparison of the scale weights
indicates that some of the vessels have
been robbed of as much as fifty tons,
calculated weights the figures rang
ing down to five tons. 1t is known
that this coal so stolen has been hawk
ed about the city and sold in gunny-
sacks of the average weight of 100
pounds to the bag, and the agents here
assert that there are at least fifty per-
sons who are in the habit of receiving
and paying for this coal, at price far
below that at which it could be sold
by the consignees.
One of the ships which lost the
greatest amount of coal was the James
Tufts, which is supposed to be loser
by forty-sX tons. The company's coal
is obtained from tunnels, at Newcastle,
is loaded into cars run on a trestle.
weighed on the scales supervised by the
government officials, and then run out
to trestles and dumped into chutea
which lead to the vessels holds. In
! this manner not a piece of coal so
weighed-in is lost The weights thus
obtained appear on the bills of lad
| ing, but they never tally at Honolulu.
| If Il Newcastle vessel discharges her
cargo at ports on the other Islands,
the tally marks are almost identical.
| The same is true at ports in other
! countries, and the agents and shippers
| finally came to the conclusion that
there was something rotten here, and
the investigation was started. After
the loss of the forty-siX tons. q watch
was kept on other vessels, and it is
presumed that those engaged in pilfer-
! ing wisely desisted from making at
tempts to steal, and the weights nearly
agreed, and in some cases the weights
here showed a small gain of coal dis
| charged over the measurements given
on the bills of lading. one captain
stated that he would give a bonus f
a gain over the bill of lading weight
was found That certain cargo of coal
| showed a gain. 1t is also known that
vessels dscharging at the Oceanic dock
and the coal carts from which have
to go out to the scales near the Inter
Island wharf, and then discharge into
! vessels for the other Islands, tally
fairly well. But the losses are gener-
ally of vessels discharging on the Els
planade.
1t has been discovered that the coal
carts have had tendency to lose much
of the coal with which they started away
from the vessel before going on the
p1..u .i.tI,t,
have been watched carefully and seen
to strike certain depressions in the
ground, which caused big Jumps of coal
to roll off, and the same watchers have
seen these Jumps picked up by men and
boys armed with gunny sacks. At times
an entire cart load of coal has mysteri-
ously failed to be discharged at the prop
err coal pile, and the question has arisen,
where was it dumped? The vessels from
Newcastle carry from 1900 tons of coal
up. This requires about as many thou
sand trips of carts to remove the coal
from the wharf to the scales, and to the
various coal piles. 1t is in these trips
that hundreds of pounds of coal are roll
ed off with generalization until the
amount runs up into the tons. In this
manner the company has lost thousands
of dollars, which have been igained by
those in the conspiracy. Not only have
| representatives of the foreign company
shipping the coal been investigating the
matter, but the local police officers have
been told to keep their eyes open.
1t is also stated by one of these coal
men that the dust storms which sweep
across the Esplanade have been invalua-
BILE in carrying on the operations Of coal
stealing. A swirl of wind around a coal
cart gives ample opportunity for lump
or two to be "jolted'' Off and serves also
as II cloak for the man with the gunny
sack. The representatives of the ship
ping concerns have learned on good au-
thority, that the presence of dust on the
Esplanade is looked upon by these men
AS blessing In disguise, and that they
are fully alive to it's usefulness. They
never encourage sprinkling carts.