Shanghaied in Tacoma: How a Sailor-Crimping Ring Hijacked a Ship's Crew

Tacoma, May 22.—Special.—There is considerable truth and some surmise in the affidavits secured from Louis Davis by the Coast Seamen's Union at Seattle regarding the crimping practices in shipping the crew of the W. F. Babcock at this port last January.

When the vessel was in port here last January loading for Great Britain, her commander, Capt. Graham, arranged with Levy, the Port Townsend sailor boarding-house master, through the firm of Bartlett & Steele, to secure a crew. Two local boarding-house masters learned of this. Forming a combine, they procured a seaman on the Babcock purposely to desert the ship just before she sailed, for alleged maltreatment at sea. They then went to Graham and told him they would have him arrested if he did not give them the job of securing the crew. He consented, and the crew was not pressed.

In stripping the crew the two boarding masters divided the work, each agreeing to furnish half the number of men. They were to divide the rate of wages and the amount of advance money. The shipping commissioner remained aboard at one time, coaxing the men to sign, but one of them held back. The rest were signed, and during the afternoon all the men were brought in to be shipped. Several charges of fraud were made, but were checked by the commissioner.

For a dollar or so the master brought up another well-known seaman to sign the articles, to see the evidence he was to give to secure a signature, and afterwards pick a man up and put him aboard under the name signed.

The boarding masters also induced two Japanese men to ship, one as a waiter and the other as a seaman, without their understanding what they were signing.

Levy, of Port Townsend, when he learned of what was going on, was incensed. He had spent considerable money in looking up a crew and he wanted compensation for the trouble he had been to. Capt. Graham sent him $5, but this did not satisfy Levy, who had Graham arrested at Port Townsend as the vessel was on her way out for attempting to leave the state without paying his debt. The deputy marshal making the arrest was called away by the illness of his wife, and left Capt. Graham aboard a tugboat for safekeeping. Friends of the captain smuggled him aboard his own ship and he set sail immediately.