Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-05-05
ROMANCE OF THE STOWAWAY-By Frederic j. Haskn

and it will cost you only $780, they are told.
And of course they grasp at the opportunity.
Hence, during the past year stowaWays
have been coming in droves, sometimes as
many as a dozen carried in the hold of one
ship. They represent all types and condi-
lions of mankind from desperate criminals to
impecunious but respectable professional men,
but they are mostly unskilled 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 boal bins, in it's lockers, behind Sc
cret panels, in boxes labeled chemicals and
"olves'' and even in the ships ventilator
f1ues. During the typhus scare recently a
vessel was examined from top to bottom and
nearly taken apart, according to an imm1-
grafton official, in order to find any passen-
ger who might possibly have avoided an ex-
animation. Then the announcement that the
ships interior was to be gassed was mega
phoned about the decks. Only then did eleven
husky stowaways creep out from hiding, pre-
ferring detection to death. In some cases,
though the ships authorities have not been
so considerate in announcing current events,
and stowaways have been fatally gassed in
their hiding places.
How the Ring Works
From the little that has been learned con-
corning the stowaway ring, it seems prob
able that they have confederates on nearly
every ship leaving south European port, as
we'll as on many leaving north European
ports In some instances the stoWaWay has
been REQUIRED to bring his own food, but usu-
ally this is supplied to him while o. board
IF discovered by those not in the rings serv-
ice he is Immediately taken before the cap
tain who decides his fate. sometimes the
treatment is extremely severe. He may pc
placed in a pen and given merely Dread anu
water. or he may be chained uncomtortaoly
to post, but in most cases he is apt TO De
nut to work. Sometimes so many stoWaWays
are found on one ship that the captain puts
them under lock and key-a wise precau-
ton since it has been discovered that many
of them are desperate CRIMINALS VINO nave
been encouraged by the police autnorltles W
leave various p~rts of Europe. one captain
keens himself in excellent physical trim by
staging an energetic fist battle with every
stowaway brought into his office. AS re-
suit very few stowaways have recently ap-
peared on his ship. ..,
Occasionally, stowaway gets aboard WIN
out the aid of the ring or the ere" OF any
hodv else, Iependng only on his own lnge-
Young English lad of fifteen, VINO haa
round. cherubic face and wore good clothes:
In choosing his quarters he selected tne mus
comfortable ones he could ind-namely, the
soft rug beneath the captains bed, where ne
GOT along very nicely during the entire trip.
In tho DAYTIME he moved fearlessy about the
deck and chatted pleasantly with the other
passengers During the first day he had ap-
reared in the dining room and was assigned
to table as politely as if he had PAID MS
passage money. Not until the ship reached
this side and the passenger list was checked,
was the Young stowaway detected, and then,
so agreeable had he made himself, that the
passengers Clipped in and paid for his pas
sage across.
Women stowaways are much more numer-
Gus than one would suppose. They come
boldly across in all the usual hiding places
occasionally disguised as men but generally
in their own Clothes During the war women
simply couldn't be KEEP off the troop ships
two of them even slowing successfully away
on battle cruiser. Since the war there is
the recent case of a freighter which put into
southern port with more than fifty women
stoWaWays on board.