Aboard "La Campine", and Left Penniless at Voyage's End - A Denial.
Chester Ainsworth of Pensacola, Fla., a member of the crew of the Dutch oil tank steamship "La Campine", in yes-terday from Antwerp, as soon as the vessel anchored off Quarantine, dropped a big envelope on the deck of the revenue cutter that came alongside. In this letter Chester declared that he had been shanghaied, and that the first thing he remembered about "La Campine" was one morning, when he awoke to find himself a member of her crew.
Ainsworth wrote that he was formerly a machinist on the Ward liner "Morro Castle". Dec. 20 last, he says, he had some drinks in a saloon in Brooklyn. When he came to he was in the forecastle of "La Campine". Capt. Ortgieze, he says, when he told his story, put him to work in the engine room, and he had no alternative but to go, to Antwerp. He was given an old, worn-out suit of clothes, while, as for bedding, he had none at all. When "La Campine" reached Antwerp he was put ashore penniless, he says. He told his story to the American Consul General.
The Captain of "La Campine" denied Ainsworth's story and said that he had signed for the voyage when sober, and undoubtedly knew what he was doing. The Consul General asked him to bring the man home rather than leave him in Antwerp, where he would probably have become a public charge, and he did so. "Sailors," explained the skipper, "often sign articles when in a half-drunken condition and regret it afterward. The regret generally results in a whole-sale shanghai charge against some one connected with the vessel."
|