New-York tribune., 1906-07-01
SHIPB0ARD MUTIN[ES.
Many Tragedies IN Life on the
High Sees.

| Bonne Bay, Newfoundland. is evidence that
this tragic feature of marine existence. the root
| fact in so many novelists' plots. has by no
| means been dissipated by the march of progress
and the betterment in the circumstances OF sea-
faring men which has been brought about
through the humanizing enactments Of various
parianents in the last few years Indeed. the
average land dweller has little idea Of the fire.
quency Of murders on shipboard or the appalling
incidents 10 which they sometimes give rise
! Only four years ago one Of these tragedies oc-
CURED which shocked the whole civilized world,
when the master of the British bark Veronica
and six of his men were murdered by three
Dutch seamen, who were subsequently hanged
for their crime The Veronica sailed from
! Ship Island Miss on December s. 1902 for
Montevideo, with crew of twelve all told. On
January Il. 1908. the steamer Brunswick. put
ting into Funchal. Madeira, for coal, reported
having picked up at sea on December % five
men of the veronica's crew in an open boat,
who reported that the ship had been burned
and their comrades drowned, and whom she
took on to Liverpool. where. on arrival. the
Negro cook, Moses Thomas apprised the police
Of the details Of an atrocity all the more amaz-
! ing because no reason was assigned for 1t. the
men not being i'll treated and the ship being
adequately provisioned
! Bad food and bad treatment are the chief
causes Of rnutinies from time immemorial. but
in this instance the only plea advanced by the
rufians for their carnival of crime was a hint
passed among the crew by the ringleader that
It was the intention of the captain and officers
to do away with the seamen. Five days after
| leaving port the murderers opened the series OF
butcheries by killing the lookout with a Delaying
pin and throwing his body overheard II was
| before davbreak and when the mate went for
| ward TO find the man, having hailed him from
the quarterback without reply he met the same
| fate Boatswain Abramson. fearing something
wrong, went to call the captain, and as the lat
| ter emerged from the cuddy hatch he was shot
! though not fatally, and crawled back into his
cabin. where he and Abramson barricaded
! themselves Another seaman, who had been
! tied to the forennast. tried to escape and was
slain and tossed into the sea-
Two days later the cabin door was forced, the
captain and boatswain were shot, and then the
| rufnans proposed to murder the cook. but MS
services were needed. and he was spared though
with many threats. The ringleader was pow
erfully framed and savage tempered fellow
named Gustav Rau. his principal assistants
being Otto Nionson and William Schmidt
! few days were spent by the crowd in making
ready to desert the ship and the ringleaders.
recognizing that when they reached land they
must be united in the tale they were TO tell Of
| the loss Of the vessel and their comrades. con-
| cocted story which daily they had TO repeat
three or four times while Rau stood over them
! with a revolver, threatening their lives If they
! made a mistake. The story ran that one died
! from sickness and the mate was washed over
board The ship then took fire, and the captain
/ and some men put off in one boat and these in
the other But two nutneers could not remem-
ber this story Alright. and we're shot down in
cold blood by the dreadful chief OF the band.
/ fha five In
ing men took to a boat and were five days later
picked up by the Brunswick ThoTnas's evi-
denoe corroborated by that of Flohr. the least
guilty of the others, who allowed TO become
an informer as the price of hts liberty, suff1ced
/ to convict the three principals. and they were
all hanged.
A few years previously. in 1894, some Malay
seamen mutinied on board the American ship
Frank N Thayer and the resulting incidents
were such that Clark Russell. the novelist de-
cIared in a letter to THE London Times that
he would not have dared to put forth such a
story as a work of fiction. for the captain. his
wife and the fourteen survivors of the crew
/ reached St Helena in open boat. after a
voyage from the scene Of the tragedy of nearly
nine hundred miles The Thayer bound
! from Manila to New York with cargo of hemp,
and the day before sailing hired four Malays to
| complete the crew. The voyage was without
/ incident till after she rounded the Cape of Good
Hope and was six hundred miles up the South
Atlantic when. one night, the Malays stabbed
/ the two mates as the watch was being changed.
and then ran amuck amid the crew. knitting as
/ they went The crew fed and three of the saw
! ages pursued them. the fourth descending the
cabin stairs to dispose of Captain Clark and his
wife. The former, aroused by the Outcry. jumped
! from his bed and faced the Malay. unarmed
! being hacked so fearfully in a minute or two
that he escaped death only by a miracle But
| his wife rushed to his aid with her revolver,
! and at the sight of the weapon the Malay fed
/ His wife got the captain into the cabin, closed
! the shutters barricaded the doors and set to
! work to stanch his wounds. Meanwhile the
! Malays had charge of the ship. The bodies OF
| the men they had killed they threw overheard,
and barred the living in the forecastle. TO which
they had fed The mate and a sailor died from
! their wounds there and the others suffered
| agonies from thirst. hunger and wound pains.
| For three days this state Of things continued.
! the nurderers several times trying to invade
the cabin. but being driven off by the shots from
! the revolvers of the captain and his wife. Then,
as they proceeded to fasten knives to long poles
with which to stab them through the skylight,
! after building a barrier 10 protect themselves
/ from the bullets, the captain decided to assume
| the aggressive. He found of his men hiding
in a storeroon. and, arming him. they attacked
! the Malavs. shooting three and forcing them
| overheard while the fourth jumped down to the
hold and set fire to the cargo. where he perished.
The crew had barely time to launch the long
| boat without sail and with only single pair
| of oars. a barrel of water and small supply OF
| food. the captains chronometer and sextant.
and a chart of the region they were in. when
! the shin was a mass OF flame. They sailed nine
hundred miles TO St. Helena, and all recovered