Armed Guards, a Locked Forecastle, and One Sailor Who Swam for It

The Sailors' Union of this city is very much incensed over what it claims is a case of shanghaing five sailors on the British ship John A. Briggs, which cleared last Tuesday morning for Liverpool, England, with lumber from Port Blakely. Patrick Glynn, secretary of the union, claims that he went over to Port Blakely late Monday night, and when he tried to go aboard the ship he was confronted by a couple of revolvers and was compelled to back out. A. Simpson, a young sailor who was signed as one of the crew, jumped overboard at noon on Monday and swam ashore, a distance of about a quarter of a mile. Simpson says that five men were shanghaied and he was to make the sixth. The story meets with a general denial from L. M. Garrison, agent of the Shipowners' Association in this city.

Simpson, the man who jumped overboard and escaped, was the youngest man in the crew, and is a hardy, powerful-looking young chap. He says he went to Agent Garrison a short time ago and asked for a job, and that Garrison sent him to Wright Newman, who runs a sailors' boarding house on Commercial street, south of the coal bunkers. He stayed there for one day, when he was told he could sign with the ship John A. Briggs for a voyage to Liverpool at a salary of $15 per month. He says he went aboard the ship on Saturday morning and found fifteen men aboard, with two guards employed to watch them with revolvers. He gives the names of the guards as George Reed and Sam Curtis. He says everything went all right until Monday, when the boarding house master, Wright Newman, came aboard and asked the men to sign for their advance money, $30 each, which is the amount they receive for feeding the men and getting them their places on the ship. Simpson says he and five others refused to sign until their clothes were delivered aboard the ship. This was refused, and the men were compelled to give up the $30 and ship without their clothes. The men were all locked up in the forecastle and guarded, and about noon on Monday, while the men were at lunch, Simpson slipped away unobserved, and tying his clothes to a plank, slipped overboard and swam ashore, a distance of about a quarter of a mile. He was afterward helped to this city by a number of the Sailors' Union.

Secretary Glynn, of the union, told a Post-Intelligencer reporter yesterday that a great deal of this kind of work was going on and he intended, if possible, to put an end to it. He says the boarding house masters are continually robbing the poor seamen and shipping them against their will. He says he is satisfied that the men shipped on the John A. Briggs are without clothes, save what they now have on, and will certainly suffer before they get around the Horn.

L. M. Garrison, agent for the Ship Owners' Association, had the following to say: "This report that these men were robbed out of their money is all bosh. They were all thoroughly sober when they signed for the cruise, a fact which will be attested by Shipping Commissioner Burns, and their only grievance was that they were refused permission to go ashore after signing. This is an old trick of deep water sailors. When they once get ashore it is almost impossible to get them back. I know positively that the entire crew was furnished with proper clothing and other needs for the trip, as I helped purchase the outfit myself. Some of these men are the most ungrateful lot in the world. When they are out of work they come to me as agent of the Ship Owners' Association, and the best I can do for them is to send them down to the sailor boarding house, where they are taken care of until they secure work, when they are expected to pay in advance."

It was learned yesterday that Capt. Balch, master of the vessel, acted very impartially in the matter and only insisted on keeping the men aboard when signed. The sympathy of nearly all the shipping men is with the owners in the fight on account of the domineering demeanor of the union and the concessions asked for by the men.