The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-07-29
CHINESE WATERS ARE
 INFESTED BY PIRATES
Captain Of Steamship Tells How Brigands Attack and Garry Away Loot.
By EDNA LEE BOOKER.
InternationaI News Service.


 Aboard the $. s. >Soochow, Off Foo chow, July 29.-Hundreds of thou sands of dollars worth of treasure is captured yearly by the pirates operat- ing along the China coast from Foo chow to Canton in raids made upon the coast and river steamers, accord ing to Captain M. s. Monkman, of the S. S. Soochow.
 The days of the pirates bold with their "heaVe ho and bottle of rum" are not all past. for pirates as daring and nurderous as Robert Louis Stev- enson's favorite variety are carrying on a fourishing business in South China.
 The pirates are organized in bands and live in picturesque junks boast ing great patched sails, huge eyes
 neither man nor evil spirits and will attack any boat whether large or small if they have reason to believe the loot is worth the effort. We were sitting out On deck admir- ing the islands covered with grass and trees, the fishing boats being rowed
 by husky Chinese men and women,
 and the little villages nestling in the
 hills which we were passing when the Captain began to spin tales of the Chinese pirates.
 Pirates Hard To Capture. There are so many pirates and so
 many ways in which they can escape along the coast from Foochow to Canton that it is almost impossible to capture said SdpCa1n MOnhmdQ The rivers emptying into the China Sea are filled with small islands, which are havens for the pirates. Why, only six months ago a band
 passengers, boarded large steamer at F;oochow. A day or so out Of Hon. kong these men suddenly took charge of the ship. The pirate chief agreat the captains cabin, ordered him to held up his hands and they searched the room
 Other members of the gang were at work all over the ship. A group ot confed crates in a junk came up to the aide of the steamer and the loot was
 handed down to them. Altogether
 they made haul of more than s100,009 worth of silver. "The pirates disabled the machin- cry and escaped. I believe that one Chinese passenger was killed in the fighting"
 Are we carrying any treasurer"
 asked 3 girl from Georgia en route
 from Shanghai to Hongkong, for
 large quantities of silver are carried
 back and forth on the coast steamers
 from the various banks and also for
 wealthy Chinese.
 "Oh, yes" answered the Captain
 nIoncha,antly. we have about a nndI-
 lion dollars in silver on board" Passengers Watch Boats.
 After that every Chinese fishing boat junk or launch we saw spelled p:i Tn DIE letters. incidentally It explained the unusually heavy police guard on the boat. The Indian men in their brown uniforms paced back and forth night and day on the decks ready for any emergency. The Captain told of the favorite method of the river pirates in at- tacking a river boat. Two junks will
 go up the river on either side of the boat A heavy rope connects the two Junks and when the brow of the boat hits the rope it draws the two iunks toward the boat and it is a simple
 matter for the men to spring or board.
 The pirates are very agile and can board a, boat simply by hooking g
 long bamboo pole on the side and climbing up hand over hand Many of the most successful pirates come from long line of pirates, They grow up on the pirate iunlss and know no other life. Others are farm ing people, and after 8 good haul will retire to their little farms for rnaybe weeks before they again attack a boat
 The pirates spare nothing and at- tack any boat from the house boat carrying small load of rice to the coast and river steamers. When captured they are shot al once and their junk is stripped, par tial1y buried in the sand and an in scr1ption, which is a warning tc other pirates, painted on the portion Of the boat left exposed.