Arizona republican., 1921-05-11

wat from s25 to $40. Today it ranges anywhere from s120 to s160. a pro- hibitive price to many would be i'm migrants, anxious to escape the aw full poverty and after-war depression of Europe. Such disheartened peas anis are easy prey for the stowaway gang. You can be hidden on board ship and supplied with food and water and it will cost you only $50," they are told. And of course they grasp at the opportunity.
 Hence. during the past year stow always have been coming ia droves sometimes as many as a dozen car ried in the hold of one ship. They re present all. types and conditions of mankind from desperate criminals 10 impecunious but respectable profes- siOnal men. but they are mostly un- skilled workers. Searching for them
 is like hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack. They are concealed in the most unexpected places-in the ships coal bins. in it's lockers. behind secret panels. In boxes labeled chemicals and 'so1ives" and even in the ships ventilator f1ues. During the typhus scare recently a vessel was examined from top to bot tenn and nearly taken apart, accord | ing to an immigration official, in or der to find any passenger who might
 possibly have avoided an examina- | tion. Then the announcement that | the ships interior was to be gassed
 was megaphoned about the decks. Only then did II husky stowaways creep out from hiding. preferring de- | lection to death. In some cases ! though. the ships authorities have ] not been so considerate in announc- 1 irg current events, and stowaways have been fatally gassed in their hid ! irg places.
 How the Ring Works
 1 From the little that has been l learned concerning the stowaway | ring, it seems probable that they | have confederates on nearly every | snip leaving a south European port, | as well as on many leaving north European portcs. In some instances l t1e stowaway has been required to | bring his own food, but usually this | is supplied to him while on board. l If discovered by those not in the rings service, he is immediately taken before the captain who decides his fate. Sometimes the treatment is extremely severe He may be placed | in a pen and given merely bread and | water or he may be chained uncom- | fortably to a post but in most cases l he is apt to be put to work. Some i times so many stowaways are found l on one ship that the captain puts them under lock and key-a wise pre- caution since it has been discovered l that many of them are desperate 1 criminals who have been encourag ged
 ty the police authorities to leave va
 rious parts of Europe. One captain | keeps himself in excellent physical | trim by staging an energetic fist bat | tie with every stowaway brought into 1 his office. As result, very few | ,stowaways have recently appeared on his ship.
 | Occasionally. stowaway gets | aboard without the aid of the ring
 or the crew or anybody else. depend
 ing only on his own ingenuity to see him through. One such was a young
 English lad of 15. who had a round Echerubic face and wore good clothes | In choosing his quarters he selected | the most comfortable ones he could l find-nameIy. the soft rug beneath the captains bed, where he got along 1 very nicely during the entire trip. In
 the daytime he moved fearlessly 1 about the deck and chatted pleasant l ly with the other passengers. During l the first day he had appeared in the | dining room and was assigned to a ! table a s politely as if he had paid his passage money. Not until the shiT | reached this side and the passenger
 list was checked, was the young ! stowaway detected, and then, SC
 agreeable had he made himself. that
 the passengers clipped in and paid
 for his passage across.
 Women stowaways are much more
 numerous than one would suppose
 They come boldly across in all the usual hiding places. occasionally dis
 guised as men but generally in theiI own clothes. During the war women
 simply couldn't be kept off the trooI
 ships, two of them even slowing suc-
 cessfully away on a battle cruiser
 Since the war there is the recent case
 of a freighter which put into 6
 southern port with more than 5(
 women stowaways on board.
 Heretofore, the treatment of stow 1 aways on this side has been rather
 lenient They did not have a great
 deal of difficulty in smuggling theii
 way through, and, if caught, kind
 friends were apt to come to theil
 rescue or the authoritiee were dis
 posed to give them every opportunity
 to make good. The new ruling how
 ever providing that no stowaway car
 be landed at an American port who
 does not possess an authentic pass
 port, has put a decided crimp in the 1 stowaway traffic Ships arc making a careful search for unknown passen-