Piracy Up-To-Date.
p. 23 · Read in the full issue
Boat Robberies Worry Thursday Islanders.
From Our Own Correspondent
Thursday Is., Sept. 10.
TORRES STRAIT will be soon able to recover some of its associations of bygone days in the realm of pirati cal romance.
At the end of last year a party of adventurers made away with a launch from Cairns and passed through the Strait to Dutch New Guinea, after call ing in at islands on the way; and a few weeks ago—despite the fact that the above-mentioned pirates were in due course collected and dealt with— another lot of sea-faring gentlemen from down the east coast decided to emulate their example, and ran off with another launch. So far they have not been captured, although traces of their passage through the Strait have been discovered.
The natives who own fishing craft are feeling a little nervy in consequence of these escapades, as the boat-robbers are armed and would probably not be averse to using their weapons if they desired to obtain food supplies, or any thing else they wanted.
The fact that there is no means of communication between Thursday Is land and the various islands of the Strait, other than by intermittent sailing craft and the visit of the Government ketch once in six weeks or so makes it difficult to follow up strange boats that are seen passing through should their movements seem suspicious.
Mr. Walter H. Gors, of Port Mores by, Papua, arrived in Sydney by the Montoro on October 11, with a view to spending several months in Australia.